Carmella Glenn Elected 18th District Madison Alder on April 1st: Empowering the Community
Long-time Madisonian Carmella Glenn is a violence intervention supervisor with Public Health Madison & Dane County.
by Jonathan Gramling
Carmella Glenn, the newly-elected alder to Madison’s 18th district, has an air about her, a quiet confidence of someone who has seen and experienced it all and in coming to terms with it, has come to love herself. It was who she is and now she is focused on what is to become, using that lived experience to empower the community, particularly the northside that she represents.
“I have so much experience in so many things and so many stories to tell,” Glenn said. “I lost my brother here to gun violence. I have been a victim of violence myself. And I have family members who have been perpetrators and those who have engaged in it. I grew up in a really violent home with a lot of domestic violence. I had witnessed to my mother for most of my upbringing and then found my own relationships to get in the same in my teenage years.”
Glenn turned to alcohol as a form of self-medication that lasted pretty much through her 20s. And somehow, some way, Glenn and her family members found redemption.
“All of us have had this full-circle moment of changing, turning into peer specialists, of using our lived experience to make change in the community,” Glenn said. “My mother ended up getting a full pardon and going to work in the Dept. of Corrections as a chaplain for 20 years. My brother is successful in the trades. My husband works for EXPO. We have taken our stories and our harm to us and to our community and used it to make it a better place to be.”
Glenn has been sober for 20 years now and becoming sober was her redemption and also a portal to a new professional life.
“There were a lot of people who found it shocking,” Glenn said about her sobriety. “‘You’re quitting drinking?’ And I knew it was just a crutch and a tool for me in my late 20s. I knew that what I was and what I needed to feel and go through, I couldn’t because I had used and abused it in a way to not feel. My last drink was in April after my 30th birthday. I knew for me that I needed to feel and those first few years were rough. But I have done the work. And I think with my falling in love with peer support, I think that is why I fell in love with it. The last 10 since I’ve been involved in that where it takes away a shame that comes with struggling with substance abuse, of struggling with mental health, of having PTSD. And when you do the work — peer support is different in the way — you try to eliminate this power dynamic. So I am working with people, sharing my story, they are sharing theirs. And that mutuality is like I tell everyone now
when I train them, ‘You want to know what peer support is going to be like? Here’s an example. The very first person who is going to come sit in the chair from you is going to tell you things about yourself and the emphasis is going to hit like little pins and needles. You are going to feel how your stories relate. And if you allow it, you get to heal too because you don’t feel alone. And they share.’ I’ve done the work. I have studied. I have really dug at myself. I am a person who constantly wants to be better. I fear failure to my people, not to myself. I have a fear of failure to those who need to see, feel and have someone say, ‘No more.’”
The beauty of Glenn’s recovery is her embrace of the humanity of the people around her, the ability to sift and winnow through her experiences to become a stronger person for herself and her community.
“When I took my adult ACE, adverse childhood experiences, it was the very first time I took the 10 questions,” Glenn said. “And if you read about them and you read about them and understand anything about them, they tell you that having a one on there can affect your health. Being up to a four can be heart disease and asthma and an earlier death. At 6-7, don’t be surprised if you have been incarcerated or have these episodic emotions when not dealt with. I’m a 10 out of 10. The very first time that I took it, I was like, ‘Oh my God, how am I standing?’ But guess what. I also took my resiliency one, which counters that one. And I knew that I was loved by my mother. I knew I was loved by my father. They were just two people struggling with their own substance abuse and mental health. I knew that my community loved me. I had a village. I had people and I believed in change. And so I have a resiliency factor out of this world. When I see something, it’s a guttural sense of knowing. I know that I will be okay if I keep doing the work for myself and my community.”
It was Glenn’s recovery and search for truth in her life and seeking solutions that led to her professional career.
“I started in domestic violence,” Glenn said. “And in and outside carceral systems. And then I went into DAIS. And I’ve always been that person like I would start a job and then say, ‘I think there is a piece missing.’ So when I was in domestic violence, I would think, ‘There’s a piece missing.’ I’m hearing a lot of voice along violence, predominantly women. And I wanted to understand what was going on with men. And so my next job was the first time that I went to work for Just Dane, which was then Madison-area Urban Ministry. I was the First Windows to Work coordinator for six counties. It was a contract between the Workforce Development Board, the Dept. of Corrections and a non-profit agency, which was Madison-area Urban Ministry. I went inside doing work with people who were 6-9 months from being released. They were considered by evidence-based practice using COMPASS meeting the high risk of the probability to re-offend. I did a support group with them and we did lots of cognitive work for about six months. And then when they were released, which was my favorite part of the job, I got to work with them for a year post-release to be that person to advocate a seamless transition and have that person there with you. I loved it.”
One thing that Glenn believed is that people need to do it themselves.
“I don’t think that people need a savior,” Glenn said. “I don’t like the power dynamic of helping people. I want to be with people. I am the people. And I really, honestly believe in 99 percent of people do not need people to do things for them. They need people who can show them that they can do it for themselves.”
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