Like a fish out of water, offenders coming back to the community from prison have difficulty even with their basic survival. Many have no home to go to, substance abuse problems that still need addressing and they struggle to find employment.

The recent focus nationally on improving re-entry services for offenders is starting to help and transitional jobs programs can play a substantial role in improving offenders' chances for success.

"So many people are having trouble serving this population, especially in the employment world," said Laura Zusman, National Transitional Jobs Network Coordinator. "One of the main issues people face is finding a place to live [and] one of the great things about transitional jobs programs is they are [working] with case workers who help, in addition to [finding employment]."

The National Transitional Jobs Network recently launched a project to help selected cities across the country improve or launch transitional jobs programs with the idea of assisting ex-offenders and other hard-to-employ individuals to reintegrate fully in the community.

NTJB is partnering in the project with the National League of Cities, the Center for Employment Opportunities in New York and the Transitional Work Corporation in Philadelphia to provide technical assistance to the participant cities in developing and/or enhancing transitional jobs programs.

According to Abby Hughes-Holsclaw, Program Director for Early Childhood and Family Economic Success for the National League of Cities, Institute for Youth, Education and Families, several mayors and city council members from across the country have identified a growing need to support former offenders and their families in the community - particularly with employment pathways.

"There are families associated with these offenders and it's important that individuals can earn wages to support their larger family, otherwise you are going to pay one way or another. Preventative measures are much more positive for everyone," she said. "The institute's role is to help city officials in supporting these individuals. We see this strategy as a real strategy to help individuals develop a current work history."

According to Zusman, some communities need assistance in creating transitional jobs programs and this project provides them that much-needed guidance.

"There are so many people around the U.S. who are interested in creating one of these, but it is such a specific model that you need help from people who are entrenched. We wanted to start programs in areas where there aren't transitional jobs programs already," said Zusman.

The model, although primarily focusing on transitional employment, also includes intensive case management to ensure job readiness, future employability and to alleviate barriers that surface, life skills classes, drug testing when needed, support to find transportation and housing, education and training and career pathways planning.

In each of the cities that was selected to be a part of the 18-month project, which include Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Newark, N.J., Oakland, Calif., Peoria, Ill. and Scranton, Pa., city, state and community officials are committed to providing program participants with a full range of services that will help them become working individuals in the community.

And, including offenders returning to the community is a large part of their focus.

N.J. Targets Barriers

As part of this project, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ) and the New Jersey Parole Board have teamed up to launch the New Careers Project, which will specifically target the 70,000 men and women who are expected to be released from state prison and juvenile facilities in the next five years.

According to Allen James, Project Director for NJISJ, the goal for the project is to design a program that will specifically address the barriers offenders face in New Jersey and create something that is replicable elsewhere in the state.

"There's lots of talk right now [and] all of the states are looking at strategies for reducing the costs of the prison systems. One of the areas is recidivism. There are huge numbers cycling in and out," he said.

The New Careers Project, which is scheduled to launch in the fall, will target offenders being released to the Essex County/Newark area and will immediately connect them to a transitional job.

The project will provide a transitional work experience for participants over an eight to 12 week time period so they have a sense of what is expected of them in the workplace. The offenders will be working with a program partner, First Occupational Center of New Jersey, that will train them in a number of social entrepreneurial enterprises, including housing renovations, building maintenance and other occupations.

James said the eight to 12 week transitional job period is key for the offenders to succeed.

"The model provides all these wonderful opportunities to engage people right away, give them a sense of purpose and it gets them off the street, puts some money in their pocket they can use to sustain [themselves] [and] it captures them in a programmatic environment as robust as you want to make it," said James.

During their off days the participants will work with employment specialists and life skills counselors to develop future employment opportunities in the area and hone their job readiness skills.

In addition, the program will provide social work counseling, clinical counseling and substance abuse counseling, if needed, for the participants.

"There's hard work to be done there. Our program tries to build this programmatic environment as a real self-help, spirited program with a mutual peer support and a role modeling approach with intensive case management," he said.

With so many challenges facing these offenders, such as applying for public housing, getting children back from foster care and applying for new identification cards, offenders can struggle and become frustrated. The built-in peer support is intended to help the offenders get through the rough spots.

"Rather than a competitive environment, it will be a mutually supportive environment where we will do trust building activities and have people cheering for one another and calling one another to account and we hope to translate that into our families and the communities and build community responsiveness. It tends to be missing," said James.

One area where the project will be limited is in providing housing assistance and, as a result, the offenders who participate in the project will need to have some housing stability.

According to James, the NJISJ does not have housing placements to utilize for the program participants and therefore needs to start the pilot phase with offenders who have a place to live.

James said that the project is intended, however, to highlight for state officials some of the major barriers that offenders face upon release, and housing is a major one.

"The supportive housing is entirely inadequate. I have been told as many as half of those being released are being released into shelters. That is a serious hurdle for people to have to deal with," James said. "We'll try to intervene to help the person keep the housing situation they are in and to ameliorate the difficulties and bring some services to the entire family and help them figure out the system."

Finally, the program will work on educating community members and legislators about the embedded barriers for offenders returning to the community. Among those specific to New Jersey is one involving the state debt many offenders owe when they take back custody of their children from foster care.

"The state instantly garners their pay at the maximum allowable level - 65 percent. The NJISJ is involved in trying to get that policy reconsidered and changed, however, it remains a severe obstacle," he said.

Another barrier in N.J. is the loss of driver's license once a person is sentenced to prison and the fines that many have to pay before they can have their license reinstated.

"Bureaucracies tend to make themselves impenetrable to the most needy consumers. We want to make these folks [able to work in the system]," said James.

James said that at first, the program will likely include about 50 offenders, but the hope is that many more offenders returning to the community will be served and become successful once the community has been educated and the kinks have been ironed out.

"We get them [ex-offenders] polished up and send them out to the same buzzsaw, but they don't know where the traps are and how the buzzsaw works," James said. This new program hopes to change all that.

Las Vegas Matches Skills to Employment

The City of Las Vegas recognized that the needs of ex-felons returning to community were deep and in 2003 launched the EVOLVE program to assist them through case management services, education, training and treatment.

In two years the program has served more than 1,900 offenders and provided intensive services to 265 clients and placed 70 percent of participants in employment, which helps them greatly.

"Often they are released with $21 and don't have a family. If we can work with them and identify their needs on the outside, it seems to prevent them from going into the crisis mode," said Lisa Morris, Neighborhood Initiatives Manager, Neighborhood Services for the city, who coordinates the EVOLVE program.

The EVOLVE program begins to work with offenders between three and six months from release to identify their needs and begin to match their skills to potential employment in the community.

"If they have a felony on their record, it could be hard for them to find employment. Employment is a main component, obviously, for them to remain self-sufficient," she said.

Offenders in the program can gain experience and skills in a variety of trades including HVAC, culinary and computer trades among others. But the program's managers have come to see that the offenders need much more than a job.

"There is a huge acclimation they have to go through. Now, when they come out, they are responsible for everything. In prison all their needs were met; it hits them like a brick. They need a job, a place to stay, they are reunited with their kids. The world has changed around them; there are a lot of things they have to go through," said Morris.

To address these issues, EVOLVE was created with mentors in mind to assist offenders being released into the community.

By making connections with ex-offenders during the launch of the program, EVOLVE built relationships with those who had made it. Now some of those individuals serve as mentors for the new offenders being released.

"We found having them is critical. I haven't been there, so I would be guessing [what it is like]. It seems to be very helpful to [show them] here's someone who has made it, then they say I can make it too," said Morris.

The program's approach has been so successful - with a 10 percent recidivism rate for participants - that the city's mayor and city council voted to fund it after the grant funding for the project was over.

In addition, the EVOLVE program has been chosen to receive technical assistance as part of the NTJN project, which will boost its effectiveness even more.

According to Morris, the NTJN project's technical assistance will help EVOLVE reach the 30 percent of the offender/participants who are not typically placed in transitional employment because they had difficulty developing a work ethic or needed further training and assistance with other barriers.

"[The program] is designed to address the total person. It could be a multitude of reasons why they end up incarcerated and continue to [commit crimes]," said Morris.

And this is the type of model that the project partners hope will be replicated in other cities in the future.

"We really believe that helping and supporting individuals with barriers to work is truly a win-win for the community. Making sure they have access to employment and training is vital to supporting a community that works for everyone," said Holsclaw. "To help offenders, in particular, to transition back into a community and gain steady, self-supporting wages decreases the need for public assistance, future crimes, need for future city services. There's a return on investment there."

Resources:

NTJN - www.transitionaljobs.net

NLC - www.nlc.org

NJISJ - http://www.njisj.org/

Evolve - 702-229-5278