MICHAEL B. WILLIAMS

Michael Williams has dedicated his life’s work to helping individuals to heal and lead healthy lives. For 16 years, Mr. Williams has worked in the corrections field with incarcerated men and women.

Since 1998, Mr. Williams has been helping individuals at the Kenosha County Detention Center develop the skills necessary to live healthy lifestyles and have healthy relationships through the Living Free Program. Often the men in the Detention Center must heal from the wounds inflicted upon them as children.

In 2002, Mr. Williams learned that WoMen and Children’s Horizons, the local advocacy center and emergency shelter for victims of domestic abuse, began to offer programming to stop men from abusive behavior. He contacted the agency and was trained to work with abusive individuals. Since then, he has volunteered as one of the group facilitators in the program that is known as Circle of Change. He is one of five facilitators who meet with a group of men weekly, many completing the program as a part of the conditions of their parole.

Through the 26-week Circle of Change Group, men who have been controlling and abusive in their relationships learn to: ·Identify the issues surrounding domestic abuse in their lives; ·Become accountable for the things they say and do; ·Get in touch with their own issues of child abuse or witnessing violence as children; ·Begin to heal and express themselves emotionally; ·Face the consequences of past abusive behavior; ·Choose nonviolence each day.

Mr. Williams is a crucial element of the Circle of Change group. He presents a positive image of what it means to be a man that the program participants can use in the development of their new violence-free lifestyles. Many men, both inside and outside of the Detention Center, have benefited by the work that Michael Williams does in the community.