Pre-release program that serves as a pre-cursor to our longstanding Jobs & Futures Program. The program will facilitate life-skills classes 60-90 days prior to participants’ release from local correctional facilities. Participants may then continue into our community-based correctional programming and receive other vital reentry support services.
Upon release from an incarcerated setting, clients participate in the Jobs & Futures Program. Client service counselors assess the specific needs of each client and an offender reentry plan is developed to help them successfully transition from incarceration to self-reliance in the community. In addition to job-training and employment assistance components, this multiphase action program provides referrals to other essential support services, follow-up counseling, mentoring, and direct aid.
The Jobs & Futures Programs is available to any adult who has been incarcerated or is currently incarcerated and planning for their release. The program helps ex-offenders and their families by providing:
Employment Placement Assistance
Survival Skills Training
Life Skills and Job Readiness Training
Information and Referral to Support Services
On-going Follow-up and Job Counseling
Institutional Job Fairs
Direct Aid (bus passes, emergency food boxes and clothing)
Documentation (ID cards, Social Security cards and birth certificates)
The agency’s Jobs & Futures Program strives to “protect and prepare, control and restore, and sustain and support” returning offenders. By better preparing individuals for the
obstacles and realities of reentry, we not only assist the former offender, we protect and greatly enhance public safety in Tennessee communities. As our programs strive to teach personal accountability and responsibility, bridges are built - bridges that will strengthen the lives of former adult offenders.
Project Return and the Nashville Adult Literacy Council formally collaborated with the state Board of Probation & Parole in March 2003 to implement the agency’s GED/Adult Literacy Program. The program serves parolees and probationers, many of whom have been court-ordered to seek assistance with GED preparation. Classes are conducted twice a week at both Probation and Parole Community Resource Centers located in Nashville at 2816 Dickerson Road and 220 Blanton Avenue. Program classes are held 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. at the Dickerson Road Center and 5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. at the Blanton Avenue location on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Resource Centers are the official reporting locations for individuals on probation or parole in the Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee jurisdiction.
Research shows that 46.5% of ex-offenders do not have a high school diploma. The average reading level of this population is between the 5th and 8th grade. About 67% of adult ex-offenders cannot write a brief letter explaining a billing error, read a map, or understand a bus schedule. Equally, 40% of former offenders do math at Level 1 of the NALS scale, which means, for example, they are unable to use an order form to calculate the cost of a purchase.
Because illiteracy tends to be invisible (no one admits to it), adults tend to try and cover it up, which poses distinct problems when ex-offenders embark on the all-important job search. Classes are taught by paid, professional teachers, focused on increasing the reading skills of those clients who read at less than a 6th grade proficiency, as well as providing preparation for the GED test. Instruction is learner-focused and tailored to meet the individual needs and goals of the participants.
Under this two-year U.S. Department of Justice Grant, PRI will provide intensive mentoring services to 500 formerly incarcerated individuals who have significant reentry barriers, targeting those with substance abuse-related crimes, a history of substance abuse, co-occurring mental health disorders, and/or significant family reunification issues. The program begins working with participants approximately 90 days prior to their release back into the community.
Funded through the Tennessee Department of Human Services, a Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) sponsored imitative, program addresses child support payment arrearages and barriers of ex-offenders. Recognizing that former offenders are faced with the daunting responsibility of paying arrears, child support payments that accrued during and prior to incarceration and who, upon release, may be faced with warrants for said arrears payments, the program is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of alternative payment arrangements and schedules by working with both the local child support agency and the Juvenile courts.
Access Point services are available at PRI offices through an agreement with the Nashville Career Advancement Center. Three work stations are available for clients to access the same career and job resources available through the Middle TN One Stop Career Center and to facilitate the WIA eligibility process. Trained volunteers work with our clients to establish e-mail addresses, engage in career development and job search activities, complete on-line applications and resume submissions and access to other job and community resources. Clients are encouraged to obtain a nationally recognized Career Readiness Certificate by taking ACT’s Work Keys Assessments.
Funded in part by Baptist Healing & Trust, this program is designed to professionally train our staff in an effort to better serve clients by offering on-site alcohol and drug support. The program involves utilizing an on-staff LADAC In-Training, and supplementing client care with our agency's Masters Level Counseling Program (MLCP), a partnership with Trevecca Nazarene University’s Graduate Psychology Program. MLCP involves two Masters Level Practicum Counselors from Trevecca, 20 hours per week, utilizing client appointments.
