Pittsfield Community Justice Support Center celebrates three clients on a day staff ‘live for’
By Meg Britton-Mehlisch, The Berkshire Eagle
Jul 14, 2023
PITTSFIELD — At the Pittsfield Community Justice Support Center on Fourth Street, staff are used to helping people through some of their lowest moments. The center, which works to support people in or exiting the criminal justice system, sees their clients through a lot of hard days.
Then there are the days that center director Kyle Schadler says “us practitioners relish and live for.” Friday was one such day, when the support center hosted a recognition ceremony to celebrate three clients who have made incredible strides in setting new courses for their lives.
Lakarra Williams, Luis Ramirez and William “Billy” Guzzo all found their way to the support center through court sentencing and probation supervision. Like the more than 500 individuals who participate in programming from the state’s 18 community support centers every year, Williams, Ramirez and Guzzo completed hundreds of hours of cognitive behavioral therapy.
They worked through curricula with clinicians on topics like substance use disorder management and decision making. They also met with case managers to set up plans for education, employment service and community service opportunities.
Along the way, center staff said they watched as the three stepped beyond their supervision requirements to truly make the most of what the center had to offer.
Guzzo started with the center in January this year as part of required pretrial treatment through Central Berkshire District Court. In the last six months, he’s completed nearly 100 hours of therapy.
Guzzo’s clinician said she’s gotten used to seeing Guzzo on his off days — those where he’s not required to check-in at the center — offering to help tend to the center’s blossoming community garden.
Staff said Guzzo has turned his nurturing attitude not only to the garden but to others in the community. Luke Fitzgerald works with the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Office to run a voluntary aftercare program. Fitzgerald said Guzzo had become one of the most engaged participants and has offered to help Fitzgerald deliver meals to other people in the program.
Guzzo said he’s learned invaluable lessons from his time with the center. “Here they teach the tools to survive the day to day aspect of everything.”
Guzzo recently enrolled in Berkshire Community College’s addiction recovery assistant certificate program, meaning he’ll be studying how to help others in recovery.
It’s a future Guzzo’s mother, Donna, said she never dared dream of for her son.
“This is an accomplishment that I didn’t — I never thought I’d see Billy finishing school or going back to BCC,” Donna Guzzo said. “What got me is that I heard good things about Billy, it’s been so long since I’ve heard good things.”
The center has opened a new door for Williams and her family as well. When Williams came to the support center in October 2021 after a drug possession case, her entry assessment classified her as a high risk of reoffending. In just over a year, she reversed that result — testing at a low risk of reoffending in November 2022.
Jennifer Mercier, the senior clinician at the center and Williams’ “person,” said her life is now nearly an inverse image of what it was when she first came to the center. After her case, Williams was unemployed, homeless and estranged from her three children.
Now Mercier said Williams has secured two jobs, found a place to live and is reunited with and raising her children. “She’s built a life for herself,” Mercier said, drawing tears from Williams in the first row at the recognition ceremony.
For Ramirez, the support center hasn’t only meant a fresh outlook on life, it’s meant a new family. Staff at the center call Ramirez their “mayor.” He’s told them he’s found a second family in the case managers, therapists and educators he’s worked with at the center.
Ramirez came to the center on New Year’s Eve 2021. Staff said that his probation conditions expired five months later but Ramirez decided to keep coming back and working his program at the center. They said that decision exemplifies the determination they’ve come to see as Ramirez’s hallmark.
Through case management with the center, Ramirez connected with Goodwill. While balancing double shifts at another job, Ramirez completed custodial technical courses with Goodwill. In April he was hired full-time in a custodial position at Berkshire Health Systems.
“Moments of pride come from hard work,” Kevin Kearney, the regional program manager of the Office of Community Corrections, said. “We wouldn’t feel pride unless we put in a lot of work into something … You’re doing that hard work.”
