Reentry

Links to recorded webinars on topics related to the issue of ex-offender reentry.

AmeriCorps*VISTA / Weed and Seed Prisoner Reentry Initiatives

Presenter Alvin Atkinson, Director of the Center for Community Safety of Winston-Salem State University, highlights the effective practices and efforts of four Weed and Seed/AmeriCorps*VISTA Reentry Initiative sites. The initiative’s partnerships, critical capacity-building roles, accomplishments, and reentry benchmarks are featured.

Child Support and Reentry

Previously incarcerated persons face a host of problems, barriers, and challenges once released from incarceration. Among the most daunting can be the collateral consequences associated with Child Support issues. Child Support arrearages can be five figure obligations that can stymie the most skilled and ready among us upon release.

Educating the Public About Reentry

Felix Mata, Baltimore City Ex-Offender Initiative, and Michelle Boykins, NCPC, address one of the core challenges of reentry: educating the public about the issue and the benefits of successful reentry initiatives for public safety and the community in general.

Employing Ex-Offenders

Carolyn Harper, Public Private Ventures, and Roberta Meyers-Peeples, National H.I.R.E. Network, discuss how to improve employment opportunities for individuals returning home from prison. The discussion addresses ways to educate the business community about hiring this population and ways to better prepare ex-offenders for successful job placement.

Faith-based Reentry Job Training

Jobs Partnership Greater Washington is a 501 C 3 faith-based job training non-profit that brings churches and businesses together to train, mentor and employ the unemployed, underemployed and hard-to- employ, including the ex-offender. Presenter: Reverend Stephen Tucker

Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse

In this webinar presenter: Dr. Todd Clear, Professor at John Jay College at City University of New York and author “Imprisoning Communities,” calls for a redirection of the mass incarceration policy he documents. He challenges society’s belief that sending people to prison prevents crime. He concludes, through evidence-based analysis, that sending people to prison does not prevent crime and does, collaterally, disrupt the social structure of communities.

Prison Entrepreneurship Program

It is amazing what one charismatic person with a good idea and passion for that idea can do. Catherine Rohr is that person and the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) is that good idea. Rohr, a former Wall Street venture capitalist, was transformed after she accepted an invitation to visit a Texas prison and founded the PEP program to tap the entrepreneurial spirit and skills of inmates to begin the path to success and fulfillment. PEP is a rigorous, voluntary, in-prison business and life skills development curriculum focused on entrepreneurism as a way out and up for prisoners within one year of release.

Recruiting VISTA Members for Reentry Projects

Donna Palandro, AmeriCorps*VISTA Outreach Specialist, and Martha Fleming, CNCS State Program Specialist, discuss important topics on recruiting VISTAs, how best to utilize them to set up and administer reentry programs, and how VISTAs can recruit and manage additional volunteers.

Reentry and Disaster Relief

Utilizing the previously incarcerated in disaster relief efforts can be a building block to reintegration into society. The opportunity to serve and give back can be a restorative that helps the community and the individual. The presenter, Bruce Vandersanden is a VISTA supervisor, a Weed and Seed site coordinator and a Division Manager at the Sixth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services. This webinar explores the disaster response and the use of national service, ex-offenders, and the Weed and Seed strategy to respond to one of the worst challenges his community faced – the 500 year flood of Cedar Rapids Iowa in 2008.

Reentry and Substance Abuse

Dr. Faye Taxman leads a discussion on the challenges substance abuse treatment poses for many criminal justice systems. This discussion highlights reentry programs that offer a continuum of treatment services and accountability programming, and successful partnerships in this area.

Reentry Funding

Melissa Bradley, Reentry Strategies Institute, and Sharon Rabb, Campaign Consultation, Inc., address the challenge of finding funding sources that could help support a reentry initiative. The discussion includes fundraising tips and how to approach potential funders.

Restorative Justice and Reentry

Presenters Melanie Motel and Zach Trent share their experiences conducting a restorative justice reentry program in Vermont. Restorative Justice (as opposed to Criminal Justice) focuses on harms and consequent needs of victims, the community, and the offender; addresses the obligations that result from those harms; uses inclusive, collaborative processes; involve stakeholders, including victims, offenders, community, and society; and seeks to put right the wrongs

The Reentry Framework

This webinar features a close look at Reentry technology, namely the Reentry Framework of www.rjcusa.org. The presenter is David Heath who explores the Reentry Framework referral and case management system and how it can serve your community and your clients. David Heath is the CEO of Web Partner Group, a for-profit company that develops web technologies and he also directs VentureCD, a non-profit that provides information and communication technology services to the social service sector, including reentry efforts.