Building Your Brilliance

Building Your Brilliance System

The Building Your Brilliance book was written for the everyday busy and stressed person who is having trouble finding time to do it all – much less take care of his/her well-being. The book:

• organizes tools of self-care into typical rooms found in a house.
• outlines a personal evaluation method to quickly assess your over-all health – spiritual, mental, physical, relational.
• recommends exercises that will get you moving forward and feeling rejuvenated and healthy.
• empowers you to live a life of love, happiness, and peace.

“The House” as outlined in Building Your Brilliance will move your life from stressful survival to joyful living and to full personal brilliance!

The facilitator guide is written for small groups who want to deepen the learning experience and to give and receive support for lasting change, The Building your Brilliance facilitator guide provides direction in setting the group up for success and for leading the group exercises. The companion workbook provides a larger space to capture your ideas along with thoughts and reflections that result from the group discussion.

The Pilot Program – Building Up “U”

The Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Department/Detention Center served as a pilot for the Building Your Brilliance System. Jodi Ramirez, LE Liaison/Project Administrator for the CCSO, inquired about programs that could help reduce recidivism for women serving sentences in the Detention Center. It was decided that teaching skills to build a better life upon release was key. A program using “The House” to teach well-being tools was suggested as the best option and was presented to Sheriff D. Brad Riley. He agreed to a trial 90-minute class with the goal of assessing my programing as a fit for the needs of the participants. It also provided an opportunity to work directly with the women and gain understanding as to their current circumstance and how to best write program curriculum that would be practical and impactful within the structure of the Detention Center.

The women in attendance of the pilot asked for more classes about total well-being; Sheriff Riley signed off on the full pilot program.

We began a 12-week pilot program which consisted of one 90-minute class per week taught by a volunteer facilitator. Each week a new room from “The House” was featured with key points and exercises to reinforce the objectives. It took about 12 to 15 weeks “to visit” all the rooms in the “The House” and teach the main objectives for each room. Once the initial 12 to 15 weeks of classes were completed, programing continued by teaching the concepts of the rooms again. Each “round” covers new concepts not taught in the first round of “The House” or reinforcing points that were important for this group of participants. Currently, women who have been participating for at least two rounds of “The House” have begun to lead various exercises with the objective of gaining confidence and refining presentation skills.

According to Jodi Ramirez, the program, as of September 2020  has a 30% recidivism rate for women who participated in a minimum of 12 classes covering the lessons in the program. This is well below national averages as reported by PrisonLegalNews.org. Sheriff Riley has visited with the women who participated in the pilot program and had this to say: “‘Building Up U’ is transformational for the women inmates. I’ve never seen a curriculum or program that has a progressive impact for positive change. This program works.”