James Ivery: The Reentry Blueprint - From Crisis to Coaching

James Ivery, founder of Transcendent Transformation Coaching, shares his powerful journey from addiction to recovery and how he now helps others break free from their own cycles of substance abuse and incarceration. Having overcome addiction himself after growing up in a family ravaged by substance abuse, James brings authentic experience to his mission of helping others transcend their circumstances and become creators of their own lives.

• Working with individuals in recovery and those recently released from incarceration
• Facilitating personal development programs in Lancaster County Prison
• Providing "warm handoffs" that personally connect clients with community resources
• Helping clients develop specific reentry plans with clear goals and timelines
• Partnering with organizations like CareerLink and OVR (Office of Vocational Rehabilitation)
• Emphasizing that people with past substance use or criminal backgrounds often make excellent employees with an "attitude of gratitude"
• Building plans that develop internal motivation rather than external compliance
• Operating from the belief that we're "more alike than different" in our human struggles
• Advocating for rehabilitation to begin immediately when someone enters the correctional system

Contact James at 717-844-1773 or JIvery@transcendenttransformationscoaching.com for personal coaching, consulting services, or program development support.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to James Ivery
• 2:30 Personal Struggle with Addiction
• 6:24 Mission of Transcendent Transformation Coaching
• 11:07 Reintegration Services and Warm Handoffs
• 13:47 Barriers to Successful Reentry
• 17:35 Finding Resources and Support Systems
• 22:24 James Ivery's Contact Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You are now locked in to Struggle2S uccess!

Sterling: 0:04

Hello, Wonderful People! We're here today with James Avery, founder of Transcendent Transformation Coaching. He is phenomenal in what he does. Mr. Avery is deeply involved in the community and helps people from all walks of life get back on their way. Mr. Avery, morning. How are you?

James Ivery: 0:25

Good morning, and it's actually Ivory, but everybody says Avery.

Sterling: 0:31

I apologize for that. We can do another take if you want. No, that's all right, I'm sorry. Okay, we're going to keep the fun in here. Do you mind if I call you James? Yeah, okay, all right, let's just go in here. Okay, James, what inspired you to start Transcendent Transformation Coaching?

James Ivery: 0:50

So what really inspired me to do this was I have my own personal struggles, right. So I'm a person in long-term recovery, meaning that I had struggled for many years with addiction to substances. Right, I come from a family full of addicts. Actually, most of my family is now deceased because of their addiction. So I had to bury a lot of my family over the past few years and so, like, growing up, that was all that I knew, right? Either you get high or you sell drugs. That's what you do in my family, right? And I had fallen into that generational cycle, right? And so I started selling drugs. And then, you know, I broke one of Biggie's Ten Commandments and got high on my own supply. Wow, wow.

Sterling: 1:45

I remember that.

James Ivery: 1:46

Thanks for asking me that Yep Okay.

Sterling: 1:52

And so I appreciate you for sharing that. Yeah, that is real talk. Yeah, that is real.

James Ivery: 1:59

Yeah, absolutely. Over my own healing journey, I found the need to help guide other people in this process. It's very imperative that we have some type of guidance when we're trying to embark on this healing journey, because it's not for the faint of heart. You're going against the grain, trying to change your mindset and everything that you know, so it's only necessary that I find someone that has managed to do this successfully, like show me Right.

Sterling: 2:37

Right, okay, I mean, I'm just taken back and again like myself. You know, you just make me go back to my younger self in Philadelphia, being in that environment, and again I remember having to go and sit with my mother in the crack house, mm-hmm, so she wouldn't get assaulted while she was shooting up with heroin, mm. Um man, you know, that's so I, I, this one's about to come right now. So the significance and the meaning of Transcendent Transformation Coaching, what is that to you like?

James Ivery: 3:20

hat is, I am helping people to transcend in this lifetime. Right, it is a complete and total transformation, meaning you are going to shed your entire old self, right, so you can become something new. You can become the creator of your own life. I am helping people learn how to be leaders of their own lives, right. So often are we out here just following the masses. So often are we out here just being victims of our own circumstances, not realizing that we actually hold within us the power to change.

Sterling: 3:59

Right, right, right 100 percent, 100 percent. What reintegration services do you offer those individuals - y

Sterling: 4:10

our clients who are ex-offenders battling recover

James Ivery: 4:30

Uh, right now I have been fortunate enough to work within Lancaster County prison. Um, I facilitate a program that is based on personal and social development. Program that is based on personal and social development. So I get to teach a two-week course, you know, based on a lot of life skills, goal development, trust building, value, identification, right, like helping them prepare with a plan prior to leaving, right. And then I do some warm handoffs to get these individuals connected with resources and the community prior to them leaving, so that they have a plan and they have a clear path and a clear direction of where they're headed once they leave.

Sterling: 5:18

You mentioned warm handoff and I actually read that in the questionnaire. Can you expound on that a little bit more? !

James Ivery: 5:24

Yeah, so a warm handoff is just exactly what it sounds like, right, like I am passing off this individual to the community resources, meaning I am making the connection with them right, because oftentimes people just want to give out phone numbers and it's like I'm not going to call them One. I'm so traumatized from whatever it is that brought me in here, right, and then I'm traumatized on top of being in here because let's, let's get honest, prison is a traumatizing experience, absolutely not. And so I, I can't trust, right, I, I struggle with trust or I struggle with follow up, right, right. I go back into my old way of thinking, which is I'm just going to do what I want to do when I want to do. It Absolutely Kicks back in Right. So here we go. Is I am able to come in, connect you and make sure that connection happens? Right, right, and then I follow up to ensure that you're still connected, wow.

Sterling: 6:39

Now. So how much time do you have for yourself? Because the facility out here it can get pretty full at times. But if you are doing all this outreach work, you're coming into the facilities. Do you have a set schedule? Do you every day, or how does your schedule work?

James Ivery: 7:01

Yeah, so I subcontract with um, another coaching group, uh, who created some of this program, um, so I teach the course for two weeks and then I'm off for four days and within those four days I'm working on my own business. Um, I also contract with another organization in the community doing addictions counseling and I facilitate a group over there. But I absolutely do have time for me. Got to make sure self-care is very imperative, right, I got to keep my cup full so I can continue pouring into other people. What?

Sterling: 7:43

was one of the, I guess, if you can say, the most surprising, one of the surprising lessons that you've learned from working with people from different backgrounds.

James Ivery: 7:57

That we're a lot more alike than we are different.

Sterling: 8:03

Well said, well said. Well, well said, well said. I could follow up on that, but I I did it right to the vine and say you know, we, personally, I want to answer that by saying, and my, my response to that is that we are all searching for something and we are searching for a peace, and you know, and, and sometimes we, we need to reach out, and one of my, one of my biggest issues were having such a traumatic childhood going through and then not being able to process that.

Sterling: 8:41

I didn't ask for help yeah, and that's where we are so much alike, we want to ask for help. Yeah, and that's where we are so much alike we want to ask for help. Because we look at elementary schooling. What's the first thing we are taught to do is ask for help. But as we get older, we get exposed to these different circles and different environments. We start saying you can't help me. And then when we do ask for help, we ask from the wrong people.

James Ivery: 9:09

Yeah, yeah. And a big reason is what I'm learning and doing this work over the span of my career is that it's so hard for us to ask for help because it requires a level of vulnerability that we don't want to practice. Yes, right, and and and. Growing up in a harsh environment or having like a traumatic, like childhood experience, like we are often shown that when we do ask for help, we don't get it right, right, so we feel unsupported. So then we uh train our brains into thinking well, I just have to do this myself because I'm not going to get the help that I asked for anyway, so why help? Or we could put into the man box where asking for help is weak, right, can't ask for help. I need to be independent, I need to do everything by myself, for myself.

Sterling: 10:05

I would say a couple of things about my wife. She gets on me all the time. You know, exclusively with this, my incident that happened. I mean,

Sterling: 10:15

In the questionnaire we sent you. The question was "Do " you work with employers who offer job assistance?" And I think your answer was you connect with community providers who second-chance with employers." How do you obtain second chance employers?

James Ivery: 10:47

Second-chance employers. So I did hold a role a while ago when I worked at this one treatment facility as an employment specialist and what I would do is I would go out and I would do presentations with employers about our clientele and how some of them may have criminal backgrounds and just present to them how deserving they are of second chances at life right and actually, if you think about it, individuals who have a history with substance use or criminal background, and when they enter into recovery they become some of the most the best workers you will ever receive.

Sterling: 11:19

Actual workers that you can have.

James Ivery: 11:20

Absolutely, because they have an attitude of gratitude right. They are just so grateful that someone has given them a second chance. I got caught that.

Speaker 1: 11:29

You're going to quote that attitude of gratitude. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

James Ivery: 11:35

But now CareerLink is actually one of the big places that I always refer to because they have a slew of employers in the community that offer second chance employment.

Sterling: 11:48

Okay, so that would probably lead into my next question what community partnerships or funding sources

Sterling: 12:00

Career Link people with they Career Link O OVR

James Ivery: 11:57

just Office of Vocational Rehabilitation like Yep connecting people with career link. They do a lot of employment opportunities. They have like OTG, like on the job training, soft skill classes Vfor can help fund individuals to go back to school. Ovr is another good place which is in the same building as career link. So if someone has like a mental health diagnosis or even having a substance use diagnosis, you qualify for ovr services so you can also get them to pay your tuition what?

James Ivery: 12:28

is that um? Office of vocational rehabilitation? Okay, yep, so if you have a disability which those qualifies disabilities, right, they will fund you to go back to school. Right, they'll pay your tuition for whatever it is that you want ok do. Wow, right.

Sterling: 12:43

And these services. I mean, like, if you, if I were to talk to some of the individuals in the facility that I work at, they, they wouldn't have a clue. They would not have a clue. You would ask them OK, what are you going to do when you get out? Have a clue? Um, you would ask them okay, what are you going to do when you get out? Stay clean? Yep, no plan. No plan at all. What are some of the barriers that you face? I know you spoke briefly about it earlier on, but today I would, I would say, with uh, just released, uh, individuals from facilities and stuff like that, major barriers that you face yeah, the the major barrier is individuals leaving there without a re-entry plan.

James Ivery: 13:32

re-entry plans are crucial. Goals are crucial, right, like goals are our direction, to get us to where we're going, and when we don't have them, like we're just out here in the wind, right. We need a clear, specific plan. What am I going to do when I get out? How am I going to do it? Who's going to help me do it? What times am I going to dedicate to doing these things? Like we have to get specific as possible. The reason why individuals become they do so well in institutions and treatment facilities is because they have someone there telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it. Right, we do great under structure, and what having a plan does is it helps you to give yourself that structure. It pulls you back when you see yourself going.

Sterling: 14:21

Absolutely Now do you see the energy from these individuals wanting to meet you halfway when they come out? Because I know a lot of times most think that, oh, they're freeloaders, they're not trying to get any help. But I beg to differ. I say that there's a great amount of individuals that when they come out they want that help, they're looking for that help.

James Ivery: 14:50

Absolutely, and the goals, absolutely. I stay in contact with most of my students and the thing about the course that I teach, right, is it's available to everyone that's incarcerated. However, it's only available to those that want it, not to those that need it, right? So, like I do individual assessments, right as we do orientation, and I tell them what the course is about, what it all entails, because it's a very challenging course, right, ok, but, like, sometimes people just aren't ready and that's OK. Ok, maybe next time you come back you'll be ready, you know.

Sterling: 15:32

OK, ok, when you are personally working these goals and there's gaps in the reentry plan or insufficient data, how do you deal with that Meaning, I guess I want to say, like, do you partner with those who are working in facilities or agencies who have already structured a reentry plan, or do you build it from ground up?

James Ivery: 16:02

So I help them create their own reentry plan, right? Because if I have someone creating my plan for me, guess what? I am really going to do it? I have no investment into it, I have no intention into it. So I talk with them about how to set intentions in life and how to really figure out what it is, what motivation that I'm lacking and how can I find that internal motivation, because if I'm externally motivated, it's going to for them. Could they still reach out to you, absolutely, absolutely, and I always encourage them, right, even if they are one day just struggling and they're like I just need someone to process this with and get some feedback. Call me, call me, text me, email me, do whatever it is you got to do, because the one thing that I want to do is I want to see everyone succeed in this thing that we call life, gotcha.

Sterling: 17:13

How do you measure the success or impact of your reintegration programs?

James Ivery: 17:20

So a lot of it is like qualitative and quantitative data. I personally haven't started collecting that data yet because I'm still very young. In my business I had just started it this past year, so last October I had just started PA business, so I'm just now starting to take off with it. But Harrisburg, a lot other programs that do collect some of this data and really it's like measuring, like you know, the recidivism rates, how long individuals have been out, measuring how long individuals are staying sober if they struggle with substance use disorder, a lot of stuff like that.

Sterling: 17:59

You know, I appreciate you saying that the recidivism rate and this is something that I'm coupling with this episode here and it was on PAgov right and they said that the recidivism rate in PA particularly is about 64%. All right, pa particularly is about 64% All right. But if you look at York, harrisburg and Lancaster, the rate here is lower than those two, because there are resources here.

Sterling: 18:38

The I definitely want to contribute you to that, and I know you're going to help reduce those numbers more. But it just shows that it's working. Your services are working and people need to hear more of that. That's awesome. So what are the biggest challenges that you face with your company, and are there any resources or supportive services you are in need of?

James Ivery: 19:07

the biggest challenges that I believe I'm facing today would be like funding. Okay, right, because the thing is is, you know, I'm working with a lot of individuals that have no income, come from low-income housing or families. I'm working with individuals that are what we like to think as the bottom of the barrel. Okay, right, right.

James Ivery: 19:41

And it's like they can't pay for these services, right, right. But guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to offer them services anyway. Okay, because it's like I know. Oh, excuse me, because I know what it means to be at the bottom of the barrel. I have been at the bottom of the barrel. I have been homeless. I have been that junkie on the streets that other addicts would talk about right before I entered into my own healing process, like I was probably a buck 15, soaking wet, with boots, on track marks from my neck down to my toes, right and like. So it is like my life's mission to like help people by showing people right, okay okay, okay, transparency, that's it.

Sterling: 20:27

That that's it man, what do you wish more people would understand about re-entry and reintegration and the work that you do?

James Ivery: 20:41

that it is imperative that we start while they are incarcerated, right, like the process must start while individuals are incarcerated. From the time they enter into processing, they should be getting connected to resources. They should be getting connected to the help that they need. Right, it's supposed to be rehabilitation, right? Correctional facility, right, right, right, that's that's what you want to call your facility a correctional facility. What are we correcting? Because really we're not correcting anything and we're keeping people stagnant and wondering why they keep returning, wondering why the same individual comes back 10, 15, 20 times because nothing's being corrected.

Sterling: 21:27

They get locked up and they sit there with nothing to do, no help, no resources you know, james, before we close, I want to get your information out there to our audience. Share anything that you would like to share your contacts, any upcoming events and how they can get a hold of you.

James Ivery: 21:58

My website isn't up yet, but you can reach me on my business line at 717-844-1773. Jivory at transcendenttransformationscoachingcom is my email. If you are an individual struggling with just life, maybe you're a professional and you want to know how can I connect better with the population that I'm serving. If you need help with program development, if you're an organization and you're like you know what I want to be able to provide some of these services, I can come in and I can do some consulting. I do a slew of services, right. I do a slew of services, right. Anything that I can do to continue giving back what has been so freely given to me in the past. I want to continue doing that right. Because somebody helped me, so I'm trying to be that somebody that helps other people.

James Ivery: 23:00

James, I just want to thank you for coming on the show and I 100% say that this will not be the last episode that we record together. I love the energy. I love everything that you're doing. I appreciate what you're doing and I hope our community appreciates it too, because it's definitely diligent, hard work and as we would say, you have to grind, you have to grind.

James Ivery: 23:26

Thank you for coming on the show.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Absolutely thank you for having me thanks for checking out this episode of Struggle to Success. To connect with the show, you can email us at struggletosuccessp at gmailcom. Make sure you like and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And remember life is trials, stay focused.