Programming – Page 2

Document Category: Programming

Model Practices for Parents in Prisons and Jails: Reducing Barriers to Family Connections

The objective of this document is to detail a set of practices that correctional administrators can implement to remove barriers that inhibit children from cultivating or maintaining relationships with their incarcerated parents during and immediately after incarceration. This handbook contains ten chapters: partnership building; training and core competencies; intake and assessment; family notification and information provision; classes and groups; visitor lobbies; visiting; parent-child communication; caregiver support; family-focused reentry.

Implementing Successful Jail-Based Programming for Women: A Case Study of Planning Parenting, Prison & Pups – Waiting to ‘Let the Dogs In’

With 68% of prisoners recidivating within a three year period, designing and implementing innovative programming within the corrections setting is a necessity. The transient nature of the jail population begets difficulties for its successful implementation and maintenance. Since incarcerated females represent a smaller portion of the population, women, who face different challenges than their male counterparts, often receive less opportunity for programming, especially within the jail setting. Parenting, Prison & Pups (PPP), a program which weaves together an evidence-based parenting curriculum, integrated with the use of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), serves as a model for how to implement innovative programming within the jail setting at both the federal and county level for female prisoners. This paper outlines strategies to employ and discusses challenges that arise during program creation, implementation, and evaluation, which all require consideration prior to starting a new jail-based program. Despite a multitude of challenges, well-developed strategies can advance program goals and outcomes.

Strengthening and Maintaining Family Connections: Best Practices for Child-Friendly Video Visiting

Visiting is an essential way for families to maintain and strengthen relationships during a family member’s incarceration, particularly for children with incarcerated parents. This brief shares 12 best practices for supplementing in-person visiting with video visiting options.

Family Connections Project Webinar Series

This is a four part webinar series that was created for the Family Connections Project.

Building Effective Partnerships with Continuums of Care to Increase Housing Options for People Leaving Prisons and Jails

To connect people in reentry with housing, an essential first step for corrections agencies is to engage with their Continuum of Care, charged by HUD to prioritize people for HUD-funded homeless assistance on a community level.

This webinar provides strategies for corrections leaders and staff to build these relationships, with a focus on establishing buy-in to serve a shared population and implementing community-wide prioritization and referral processes.

The webinar also features presentations from communities that have successfully built partnerships across the criminal justice and housing/homeless assistance systems to increase housing opportunities for people reentering.

Theme: Housing

This web-based resource shares personal experiences and insights from returning individuals about their transition related to community reintegration, securing housing, mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, employment, healthcare, and family reunification support. The conversations, a unique partnership between American Institutes for Research (AIR) and JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), featured a series of facilitated group discussions with individuals returning to the community from across the United States that occurred between August and October 2022.

Breaking Down Barriers: Lessons from Housing and Justice System Collaborations

Affordable housing is fundamental to successful reentry. To help policymakers build sustainable pathways to housing, The Council of State Governments Justice Center, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, conducted the first national survey of state Departments of Corrections reentry coordinators, receiving responses from 37 out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia. This national report outlines current practices, highlighting areas where policymakers can direct efforts to increase connections to housing.

Using Supported Employment to Help People with Behavioral Health Needs Reentering Communities

The ability to find and secure employment, particularly with a livable wage, is one of the most critical aspects to helping people lead safe and healthy lives. Unfortunately, many people leaving prison and jail face barriers and stigmas associated with their incarceration that prevent them from obtaining employment. Supported employment services, customized for people with behavioral health needs, can help address these challenges and provide the assistance needed for people with behavioral health conditions to obtain and sustain gainful employment as they reenter communities. This brief highlights four ways that reentry and community supervision programs can use supported employment services to prepare people with behavioral health needs for successful reentry.

Recruitment, Assessment, and Retention in the Direct Care Workforce for Individuals with Criminal Records: A Comprehensive Model Approach

Recruitment, Assessment, and Retention in the Direct Care Workforce for Individuals with Criminal Records: A Comprehensive Model Approach identifies strategies for connecting individuals with criminal records who do not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety to long-term employment in the rapidly growing health care sector.

The Hidden Costs of Reentry: Understanding the Barriers to Removing a Criminal Record

NIJ hosted a webinar to discuss under-researched aspects of reentry: expungement of criminal records and the impact of those records. This webinar includes a presentation of ongoing research projects examining the impact of legal aid for expungement and past research projects studying the accuracy and permanency of criminal records and the prevalence of collateral consequences of conviction. A Q&A session will conclude this webinar. Video Run Time: 1 hr., 29 mins.