Spotlight Announcement
6/23/2009: Justice Center Staff Works with State Agencies and Community and Faith-Based Organizations in Ohio to Promote Collaboration around Reentry
Justice Center staff recently traveled to Ohio to pilot test a companion tool to the Reentry Partnerships guide, and to promote the guide and its recommendations at a national reentry conference.
The guide, Reentry Partnerships: A Guide for State & Faith-Based and Community Organizations, was released in December 2008 with the support of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, U.S. Department of Labor. It offers practical recommendations for how state government officials and community-based service providers can better use limited resources to help people released from prisons and jails successfully rejoin families and communities.
Organizers of PowerNet of Dayton’s “2009 Raising the Bar: Ex-Offender Reentry Conference” invited CSG Justice Center staff to conduct a workshop to review the guide and its recommendations. Together with Kim Hettel, Family Reentry Project Manager in the Ohio Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, CSG Justice Center staff discussed a range of topics such as strategies for building networks that include both government officials and community leaders, ensuring the sustainability of funding for reentry programs, and overcoming cultural differences.
The Justice Center is now developing a companion tool to this guide, which government officials and representatives from community and faith-based organizations can use to assess whether their organizations are positioned for a successful partnership. Last month, Justice Center staff pilot tested a draft version of this tool at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) in Columbus, OH. Over 40 representatives from community and faith-based organizations, the ODRC, Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and other state and local agencies provided comments on the draft tool. Based on this feedback, the Justice Center plans to revise and improve the tool. Lessons learned in Ohio will inform the application of the tool in other jurisdictions.
For more information on the Justice Center’s work on this issue, visit the Reentry Policy Council website.
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How and Why Medicaid Matters for People with Serious Mental Illness Released from Jail
Hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness are released from jail each year. Without continuity of care, they are likely to be reincarcerated. Enrollment in Medicaid increases access to treatment for people with mental illness released from jail, who typically lack other means to pay for those services.