From inmate to reintegration support.

Meet Reece, the newest member of the Pathway whanau. With lived experience of incarceration and having recently completed health and wellbeing studies, Reece is uniquely positioned to support men still navigating their journey inside. This is his story.

"I didn't have a really bad upbringing. I had quite a privileged one actually. But when I got into my teenage years, I wanted to be independent. I went to good schools and all that, but then I sort of got in with the wrong crowd. And from about 15 I started getting noticed by the police."

"I sort of just got into crime and drugs. I thought that's what I was going to be, a criminal. I wanted to be the man, basically. It was all about the money. Money was my main addiction. I wanted more and more and more."

During the Covid lockdown, something shifted. Reece was in prison again, and a realisation hit him hard.

"I was sitting in prison and I was just looking around thinking, am I going to be that old guy that when I was a young guy I'd come to prison and thought, oh, I'll never be that old guy in jail? But I was."

After his release, Reece met his partner. "We were both still in addiction. But I just thought, I really don't want to lose this girl. Something just clicked in me. We decided that yeah, enough's enough. Let's just do rehab together with each other and support each other through it."

"Since I got clean, I haven't been on Facebook, I've got no social media presence. I'm actually genuinely, probably the first time in decades, happy with my life right now."

Now, working for Pathway, Reece has found something he never thought possible. "When I went for my prison induction, I felt like they were going to say, oh nah, nah, you're not coming in. But there was an officer, someone quite high up in the prison that I'd known for years. He was just like, oh, you've got me lost for words. I never actually thought that I'd see someone like you come back."

Since then, Reece has learned a lot about how we do things at Pathway. "What I've seen with Pathway is not bullshit. The follow-up is real. You're in there to prepare for being out here. But once you get out here, that's when the work actually starts. Seeing what the navigators do with the boys out here, I'm just blown away by it. I'm learning so much."

"I'm the subtotal of the love and support given to me from my mum and now from Pathway. Being here, clean and clear headed, the world's so much bigger. I'm the most comfortable I've been in my life, and I never thought I'd get here."