News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Haley Betterly earned her GED diploma and completed her IGNITE courses through programs offered at the Alpena County Jail. Betterly stands in her graduation attire with Jail Administrator Sergeant Christina Bednarski, Undersheriff Cash Kroll, Iosco RESA Adult Education Director Nicole Hatch, and Sheriff Erik Smith at the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office on Friday.

ALPENA — Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education, known as IGNITE, has provided learning opportunities for 25 people housed in the Alpena County Jail, including Haley Betterly who recently earned her GED diploma through the program.

Nicole Hatch, director of adult education at the Iosco Regional Educational Service Agency, said that the IGNITE program launched in January at the jail. On Thursday, 17 people who are incarcerated celebrated the completion of the courses they have been taking for the past seven weeks with a pizza party and a round of cornhole, according to a Friday press release.

Courses offered through the IGNITE program include Anger Management, Adult Crossroads, Workforce Development, and Nutrition.

Inmates can also take classes to earn their GED diploma, as well as take Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning, engineering, plumbing, and electrical classes using Orijin tablets provided by the Iosco educational service agency. Courses are set up using modules that participants can work through at their own pace.

Betterly talked about her experience earning her GED diploma and going through the IGNITE program.

“It’s been pretty hard, I would say, but it’s not like, hard in a bad way, it’s hard in a good way,” Betterly said. “But I’m super grateful for everything that they’re doing for everybody, including myself.”

Betterly said she started earning her GED diploma about eight weeks ago. The jail has offered adult education classes for people who are incarcerated to earn their GED diploma for a long time, Hatch said. However, the IGNITE program offers inmates other benefits and courses that the jail did not offer prior to the program’s launch in January.

“Under the IGNITE umbrella, they get time off their sentence by participating,” Hatch said. “They get up to 15% off of their time.

“The part right now that they don’t have access to would be that instructor, to ask questions. So if they get stuck, I can help them as much as I can, but I don’t know anything about HVAC, so I would have to find the answer for them,” she continued, referring to one of the most popular courses with people at the jail.

The HVAC course, as well as the electrical, plumbing, and engineering courses, give people who are incarcerated the education they need to earn their licenses and certifications after they are released from jail.

In the future, Hatch said they have plans to start offering classes that will allow people who are incarcerated to earn their residential builders permit through a partnership with Alpena Community College. The Iosco educational service agency would then pay for someone who has completed the course to take the certification test upon release.

When she is released from jail, Betterly would like to attend college and work at the Sunrise Center as a recovery coach.

“If anybody qualifies for the job it would be me,” she said. “Literally my whole life I’ve struggled with addiction, so I think I would really like to do that.”

“I think that would be nice,” Betterly continued. “Start at the Sunrise Center, just help other people like me, like get rid of the stigma behind it and know that anybody can do this, not just myself. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that never thought I would do something like this, and I didn’t think I would do something like this, so If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.