Bridge to the Future is the agency’s adult pre-release program and is provided to inmates prior to their release from area prisons and/or detention centers. Designed to afford participants with an opportunity to learn and practice the skills necessary to successfully reintegrate back into the community, the program is based on Survival Skills, Career Development and Job Readiness Training models. The curriculum includes instruction in the application process, want ads, networking, interviewing skills, and attitude and job retention. During the workshops participants have the opportunity to learn and practice essential skills including, money management, problem solving, family development, goal setting and conflict resolution. The aim of this program is to empower participants to effectively manage their family and employment responsibilities.
Pre-Release Curriculum Focus:
Preparation for Release
Financial Responsibilities
Employment Responsibilities
Family Awareness
Job Search Preparation
Job Retention Awareness
Pre-Release Job Fairs
Project Return also hosts job fairs that bring prospective employers into the correctional facilities and provide inmates with an opportunity to seek employment prior to their release. Because of the direct correlation between unemployment and crime, these events contribute to the reduction of recidivism in our community.
Potential Employee Opportunities
If you are interested in taking part in one of our job fairs or would like to discuss hiring possibilities with us, please contact our offices at (615) 327-9654.
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.
Project Success is a unique program designed to help adjudicated youth turn their lives around. It targets 12 to 17 year olds who have already been sentenced for juvenile offenses. This innovative program was implemented in August 1999 and currently works with youth incarcerated at the Woodland Hills Youth Development Center, Nashville Transition Center, and the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center. Both Woodland Hills and the Nashville Transition Center are under the guidance of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Through Survival Skills and Career Development for Youth models, this program offers extensive training and practice in:
Life Skills
Conflict Resolution
Job Readiness
Mentoring & Role Modeling
Manhood and Womanhood Development
The Career Development component provides an extensive look into the youthful offenders’ prior work history, interest and current job duties in the institution, and helps them to better develop a career path. The program’s overall goal is to provide instruction that improves the behavior and attitude of participants, two factors that are strongly correlated with recidivism in both juvenile and adult offenders. Like the adult programs, the objective is to “protect and prepare, control and restore, and sustain and support.” By better preparing youthful offenders for the obstacles of reentry, we protect and greatly enhance public safety. The program’s vision is “to prevent the juvenile offenders of today from becoming the adult offenders of tomorrow.”
The Legacy Program is an extension of Project Success and works with adjudicated youth deemed “serious and habitual juvenile offenders.” This juvenile is the youthful offender that may have one or two felony convictions but has continued to appear before the Juvenile Court with probation or truancy infractions. The agency partners with Nashville-based Family Empowerment Services to provide prevention and strategic intervention services for program participants, and the Hope Institute for Youth Enhancement provides mentoring services for the program. The Legacy Program will empower adjudicated youth with a sense of hope and self-responsibility, enabling them to shape their own positive destiny.
Through an enhanced at-risk youth curricula, instruction and mentoring, the program can positively affect the behavior and attitude of participants, two factors strongly correlated with recidivism in juvenile offenders. Upon their release to the community, the Legacy Program will identify 50 juveniles designated as “serious and habitual” in 2006 and provide them with intensive training and needs assessments through a hands-on support system that will help them to become responsible, law-abiding members of the community, which will enable them to better shape their own future. The Juvenile Court, Juvenile Probation, or the Department of Children Services must sanction assignment to the program. Upon program completion, participants will be able to demonstrate an increased knowledge of healthy life choices, improved social skills, and understanding of problem-solving skills. Pre- and post-tests are administered to all participants.
