California Reentry and Enrichment (CARE) Grant Awards

Program Name: Prison Project (TAGPP)

Institution: VSP

TAGPP offers ensemble theatre as a tool for transformation and rehabilitation. In the seven-day intensive, we introduce participants to ensemble work, heightened play in four states of emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger), and 14 archetypal characters of the Commedia dell’Arte, a 500-year-old theatre tradition. We take 25–30 self-selecting – individuals for the class, and the group must be racially mixed and from different gang affiliations.

Participants develop an awareness and expression of their emotional life, and the ensemble work asks them to take responsibility for it. When participants recognize their value in the group and the community, they can make new choices in their lives, which can heal trauma. At a minimum, the program addresses needs associated with crimes (emotional health, mental health, antisocial behavior, relationships issues). These exact needs are the basis for Social-emotional learning, which inherently addresses criminogenic behaviors associated with people who are incarcerated.

Program Name: Traditional Arts as Healing from Trauma

Institution: CCI

The program will include four interconnected modules led by traditional artists and cultural facilitators designed to rotate concurrently between four cohorts of participants at the same institution. These cohorts may exist in the same yard or in multiple yards of the same institution according to the needs of the institution.

These modules are designed for participants to be able to embody traditional arts practices that are pathways to recognizing, understanding, and moving beyond trauma. The modules will include reflection and sharing components that will deepen the participants’ understanding of their own cultural traditions, identities, and relationships.

Program Name: Visual Fine Arts

Institution: COR

Each program employs teaching artists to provide arts instruction to residents of the facility with oversight from prison staff. These teaching artists instruct the incarcerated population in painting, drawing, music, and poetic arts in an effort to gain new skills as well as increase empathy and accountability among participants.

The current iteration includes a scheduled 2 classes per week per subject. The programs are built upon 12-week cycles and welcome a maximum of 12 participants per instructor as per the 12:1 ratio enforced by the institution.

Program Name: Healing Trauma

Institution: CCWF

HT+ is inclusive of the trauma, stigma, discrimination, and violence found among the underserved transgender- and gender nonconforming (TGNC) community. HT+ is a gender-inclusive program, benefiting both the TGNC and the cisgender populations and providing education about proper pronouns and common misunderstandings about gender identity.

Additionally, providing trauma-specific Peer-Facilitated programming in the RC allows women to have early involvement in program services, reduces fear and anxiety while waiting for housing placement, and allows them to develop healthy peer relationships. The 6-session HT+ trauma curriculum focus is on an understanding of trauma, its process, and its impact on both the inner self (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values) and the outer self (behavior and relationships).

Topics include: The Process of Trauma, Power and Abuse, Healthy Relationships, Grounding and Self-Soothing. Each topic is approached through the lens of trauma and its lifelong impact.

Program Name: Virtual Reality Program

Institution: COR

We created a curriculum to address these issues which combines a strong and scientifically validated arts-based program with Virtual Reality (VR), a technology that has been used already to create breakthrough treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is showing promise in the treatment of many other mental health conditions. Our VR scenarios are designed to give experiences of creativity and stress management to incarcerated individuals, and to expose participants to experiences which have been shown to cause anxiety when re-entering society.

The unique design of our program identifies potential stress management, empathy based, and reentry issues by centering experts with lived experience of prison, engages alumni and teaching artists with VR developers to create innovative content that is specific to these problems, connects each VR experience with a series of Arts exercises, tailored to ease the trauma surrounding the event, and executes classes that bring artists, returned citizens, VR technicians and wellness experts together in a cutting edge, completely unique, and highly impactful program. Our curriculum is 4 hours a day for 7 consecutive days.

Program Name: Project Rebound Outreach Program

Institutions: CAC, CCWF, VSP

The CSU Project Rebound Outreach Program (CSU PROP), is a comprehensive, structured, robust workshop-based pre-college orientation and certificate program consisting of eight 90-minute workshops that replicates, expands, and formalizes Project Rebound’s pre-college outreach services that assist with preparation for college and enable prospective students to make connections with CSU campuses throughout the state.

CSU PROP seeks to address basic criminogenic needs through a variety of educational interventions. These outreach efforts are designed to create supportive pipelines to help interested individuals find a way to pursue higher education post-release. This program offers personalized support designed to assist those who are considering higher education post-release.

CSU PROP helps participants navigate the university system, access available resources, and overcome academic and non-academic barriers to success. Via in-prison outreach sessions as well as through written correspondence, CSU PROP educates individuals about the admissions process, prerequisites, and available degree programs. Prospective students complete a questionnaire describing their academic history and interests, which staff use to conduct an initial assessment of admission eligibility. Rebound staff then provides applicants with detailed guidance on admission strategies, such as taking prerequisites at a community college, required entrance exams, and information on in-custody coursework that is transferable to the CSU post-release.

CSU PROP is able to help program participants with academic promise to overcome minor academic deficiencies or missed deadlines to gain acceptance into the university. Each term CSU PROP consist of five to eight sequential workshops with a cohort of 30 students continuing together through the series. CSU PROP is offered to three separate cohorts during each visit to the institution. Overall, three cohorts (90 students) undertake CSU PROP at each facility per term, for a total of nine cohorts (270 students) per facility per year.

Program Name: Exploring Trauma Plus

Institution: CCI

ET+ is a trauma-informed program, and addresses the trauma, stigma, discrimination, and violence found among the transgender- and gender nonconforming (TGNC) community. This is a gender-inclusive program (i.e., inclusive of gender-diverse populations). Thus, the program is designed for those who have the experience of, i.e., living as a man, identifying as a man, and/or being assigned male at birth, which includes transgender women and transgender men. ET+ is designed to benefit the underserved TGNC population, while further educating the cisgender population surrounding proper pronouns and common misunderstandings about gender identity.

The 6-session ET+ trauma curriculum focus is on an understanding of trauma, its process, and its impact on both the inner self (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values) and the outer self (behavior and relationships). The materials consist of a Facilitator’s Guide and a Participant Workbook. The ET+ curriculum includes the lived realities of the TGNC population; thus, the program can be equally applicable to cisgender men (gender identity corresponds with sex assigned at birth), transgender women and men (gender identity does not correspond with sex assigned at birth), and gender non-conforming individuals (diverse in gender identity). For the purpose of bonding and building acceptance, groups are meant to be combined and not specific to gender identity.

Program Name: GRIP

Institution: CMF

The GRIP program is uniquely suited to address both the root cause of violent actions by students and the connection to violence transgender people often experience in everyday life. We would recruit and train transgender facilitators between classes. This would allow a safe container for students to process specific experiences of violence, as we are aware transgender people experience rates of violence 4 times greater than their cisgender counterparts.

Each GRIP group (called a Tribe) is 30-34 students. Teams of 3 “outside” facilitators lead each group, including at least one formerly incarcerated GRIP graduate. All facilitators are highly vetted and trained. The program consists of 52 weeks of 2-hour classes or 13 monthly, daylong (8-hr) classes (104 hours of instruction) plus an orientation and graduation.

Program Name: Victim Awareness Program

Institutions: CAC, CCWF, CIW, CIM, VSP

HDA-VAP helps incarcerated individuals (“participants”):

• identify the circumstances that led to their crime,
• understand and reflect on the harm they caused, and
• explore ways to take responsibility for their actions/make amends.

Family survivors of crime/homicide attend at least two classes during the program to share with participants the profound and devastating ripple effect that one act of violence has had on their lives. These encounters allow survivors and participants to connect, learn from one another, and heal.

Program Name: Hustle 2.0

Institutions: CIW, COR, FSP, SATF, SOL, SQ, VSP

Hustle 2.0 is an evidence-based, trauma-informed program that equips incarcerated people with the knowledge and tools to transform their lives by changing their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Hustle 2.0 aims to decrease criminal behavior, violence, and recidivism by equipping participants with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be crime- and drug-free, thoroughly prepared for reentry, and employable upon release.

Hustle 2.0 works with a team of criminologists (all PhDs) at Justice System Partners to ensure our curriculum addresses the top eight criminogenic needs. Hustle 2.0 has been intentionally designed with evidence-informed practices to produce pro-social outcomes, including the requirements identified in PC 5007.3 Section B. For example, Hustle 2.0’s 36-page course called B.E.A.S.T Mode (i.e., Building Endurance After Surviving Trauma) increases participants’ resilience and reduces the impact of trauma on their current lives.

Our 30-page course called Yo’ Stop Button Function (i.e., Changing Dangerous Patterns) reduces violence by equipping participants with coping strategies and cognitive behavioral tools to evaluate and break harmful patterns. During the 14-week program, participants will invest ~80 programming hours in Hustle 2.0, learning tangible skills and practical tools they can confidently apply.

Program Name: Mens Support Group

Institutions: CMF, SOL

Inside Circle (IC) empowers incarcerated individuals to confront past trauma and heal. Through our Men’s Support Group (MSG), we lead incarcerated individuals on a deep, transformational journey of personal growth. Our approach utilizes peer-led healing circles, in which participants gain lasting increases in insight, empathy and accountability. Groups at CMFL will meet weekly for two hours.

Additionally, twice per year, each group will participate in an intensive held across four full days. At all proposed facilities, we will continue to follow our lifestyle model that does not utilize program cycles. This model encourages participation by those truly committed to change and allows incarcerated individuals to begin working toward active rehabilitation at any time.

Program Name: Insight Garden Program

Institution: CHCF, CMF

Our program meets the unique needs of diverse populations with our trauma-informed approach using the gardens as a tactile, experiential, and immersive tool to provide healing and build self awareness. The curriculum is built around best practices in adult education, positive youth development frameworks, and utilizes gender-responsive approaches to the learning content. We have formerly incarcerated co-facilitators who serve as mentors and allow us to build truly inclusive and safe community spaces.

IGP has successfully engaged people across yards, security levels, housing units, genders, ages, geographies, and mental, physical, and developmental abilities. IGP launched at CMF in 2015 and CHCF in 2016. IGP works on CMF and CHCF’s underserved yards, with people who are transgender/gender non-conforming and EOP. When we launched in these prisons, IGP was adapted to be accessible to people with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities, and to people who are transgender and gender non-conforming.

We have successfully piloted our program with the psychiatric in-patient population as well. IGP’s curriculum is delivered in four three-month semesters for a total of 96 hours of programming/year. Classes are weekly for two hours. Ideal group size is 25-30 participants with up to 90 participants per year, for a total of up to 270 per prison during this grant cycle.

Program Name: Creative Expressions Songwriting Program

Institution: CEN

This proposed program meets the requirements identified in PC :5007.3 Section B by offering programming that increases empathy and resilience by examining and relating to one’s personal choices and connecting deeply with collaborating partners, addresses PTSD through creative expression, reduces violence by building healthy neural pathways of expression/coping thereby diffusing anger, hostility, and aggressive ways of being toward self and others. This holistic approach heals participants from the inside out and offers emotional comfort, relief, accountability, and responsibility.

We have selected underserved facilities with youth offender populations, both GP and SNY yards, where participants may carry early-life traumas and PTSD from abuse and behaviors that adversely impacted their developing brains, leaving them with negative coping skills, and underdeveloped critical thinking abilities. The program is targeted to serve youth offenders by using current musical styles as a jumping off place paired with non-judgmental language. The proposed 8-week curriculum is based on trauma­-informed practices, strategies, and activities which lead participants to safely explore their emotions, allowing the process of discovery, transformation, and insight to result in positive outcomes.

Program Name: Mindfulness, Trauma Informed Art Workshops

Institution: CRC

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is an exceptionally useful program for people in detention, as it allows those with very little control over their environment to practice being fully present, to gain awareness into their thoughts and feelings, and to self-regulate so as not to become overwhelmed or overreact to their surroundings or to the behaviors of others. Thousands of California prisoners have experienced significant trauma, either prior to or during their incarceration — yet many have not received help in healing or in developing healthy coping skills.

Mindfulness provides participants with a safe and gentle way to develop insight into how trauma and abuse have affected their lives, notice and understand their reactions to stress, and build skills to help them serve their time productively and prepare for successful reentry. The program consists of 8-weekly 90-minute sessions that include a mix of instruction, meditation practice, and discussion.

Trauma Informed Art Workshops

JDI offers art workshop series consisting of 8 weekly, 2-hour sessions aimed at helping people heal from trauma and abuse. Thousands of people in California prisons have experienced significant trauma prior to or during their incarceration. The program uses creative expression as a tool for participants to gain insight into the effects of trauma and abuse on their lives, build healthy coping skills, and set goals to serve their time productively and prepare for successful reentry. The program is open to anyone who has experienced trauma and is interested and comfortable in participating in a group setting.

JDI’s art workshop program is designed specifically to expand options for people who may never before have sought counseling services, or who feel uncomfortable or unsafe using “talk” therapy. Participants are not required to share personal details or experiences verbally, making the art workshop model particularly safe for people in prison whose fear about appearing vulnerable often prevents them from seeking help — especially in men’s prisons.

The program is a low stress pathway to services for anyone who fears the stigma of identifying as needing mental health services, or as a survivor of trauma. In short, the program allows participants to address past trauma that they might not otherwise tell anyone about, but which nonetheless affects their daily functioning and their ability to set and achieve productive goals.

Program Name: Critical Literacy & Peace Education

Institution: FSP, SOL

Peacemakers’ Alliance (PA) is a critical literacy and peace education program designed to help incarcerated persons improve their literacy skills, learn about nonviolence and build capacity for critical thinking and conflict resolution. PA provides participants with educational opportunities that increase their awareness of human agency–an awareness that they can control their destinies. The program offers literacy and peace education classes, ensures that participants receive mentorship, creates opportunities for participants to build leadership and conflict resolution skills, and empowers them to experience what it is like to be an integral part of a community.

PA curricula cover themes of education, social justice, nonviolence, compassion, forgiveness and the impacts of trauma on individuals and communities. Participants utilize the academic and conflict resolution skills they gain to play a role in building peaceful communities. Working in collaboration, the students and educators work to raise critical consciousness about individual and community needs. Peacemakers’ programming integrates reading, writing, videos, class discussions, meditation and hands-on skill building through a variety of individual, small-group and large-group activities.

Program Name: Prison Education Project (PEP)

Institution: CAL, CVSP

The Prison Education Project has embraced a progressive and innovative approach to supplementing and expanding educational opportunities for the incarcerated population. By providing academic, life skills, and career development programming, PEP aims to educate, empower, and transform the lives of incarcerated individuals.

The goal of PEP is to create a “Prison-to-School Pipeline” and provide in-custody students with the cognitive tools necessary to function as productive citizens. Our multi-layered approach enhances human development, reduces recidivism, saves resources, and allows participants to ultimately contribute to the economic and civic life of California.

Program Name: Prison of Peace

Institution: CAL, CCWF, CHCF, COR, HDSP, PBSP, PVSP, SAC, SATF, SVSP

PoP fosters personal accountability, increases emotional intelligence in students, reduces violence in prisons, and is the only program in the world to train incarcerated mediators to reduce violence in the prison environment. For this program, PoP will provide only its Orientation Correspondence Course.

The PoP Orientation Correspondence Course (OCC) introduces key concepts of our curriculum and consists of eight workbooks (Modules) that take approximately two to four hours each to complete. This correspondence course is the gateway to all other Prison of Peace programs and designed to promote motivation for future engagement in rehabilitative activity, whether our programs or others.

Program Name: Prison of Peace

Institution: ISP

Prison of Peace (‘PoP’), which began at VSPW in 2010, is now a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to bringing conflict resolution skills to incarcerated populations and has directly served over 3000 participants. PoP fosters personal accountability, increases emotional intelligence in students, reduces violence in prisons, and is the only program in the world to train incarcerated mediators to reduce violence in the prison environment. The curriculum was custom designed by co-founders Laurel Kaufer and Doug Noll, based on their experiences as conflict resolution professionals and trainers for over two decades. Through the inclusion of selected principles of neuroscience and cognitive behavioral therapy, PoP participants develop a deeper understanding of their circumstances, empathy for others and personal resilience.

Participants are guided in understanding how the behaviors they believe had ensured their survival may be preventing them from living the life they want, and how to align their future actions with their intentions. Because of the unique nature of the YOP population, this program has been designed to be presented first to more mature participants who are already mentors in YOP or wish to be. Upon successful completion of the program, they will be trained in sharing PoP lessons with the incarcerated young people they mentor. This part of the program will include their YOP mentees. This will include specific training elements in presentation, group dynamics and coaching for personal growth.

Program Name: Yoga & Mindfulness Immersion

Institutions: CRC, MCSP, SAC, SQ

Prison Yoga Project’s (PYP) Yoga and Mindfulness Immersion program (YMIP) provides individuals with skills to increase impulse-control and emotional stability while reducing stress, anxiety, depression, aggression, hostility, and symptoms related to unresolved trauma. Our program develops self-awareness, improves rational decision-making, and enhances the ability to focus and concentrate on work and school-related tasks. Mindfulness-based yoga promotes increased empathy and mindfulness, increased resilience to the impacts of stress and trauma, reduced violence and hostility. Embodied practice addresses the root causes and symptoms of PTSD, and this self-work helps incarcerated people better understand the impact they had on their victims and encourages accountability. It offers a healthy recreational option while improving physical fitness and overall health, including relief from chronic pain.

Program Name: The Art of Accountability for Youthful Offenders

Institutions: SAC, SOL, SQ, VSP

Red Ladder Theatre Company’s The Art of Accountability for Youthful Offenders program builds upon the successes of the programs we have provided in carceral settings, with a focus on transformative and insight-oriented personal development. Using transformative justice/circle processes along with techniques that encourage self-reflection and shared problem-solving, participants will envision healthy solutions to the problems they face, understand the consequences of their actions, develop the dynamics of communication and conflict resolution, and take responsibility for themselves and their actions. Workshops will take place once a week at each institution. The workshops will run in twelve-week cycles/sessions at each institution, which will repeat three times during the term/year, for a total of three twelve-week cycles.

Program Name: Realize

Institution: CTF

Realize utilizes restorative practices to explore participants’ insight with intimate violence (family violence, sexual harm and intimate partner violence) to connect the dots, understand causative factors, increase empathy, and become deeply accountable using a restorative justice (RJ) approach. Drawing on RJ practices and trauma healing philosophy in a supportive setting, we explore topics such as impact of trauma, stress, resilience, accountability, gender socialization, structural and historical conditions of violence, shame and worth, breaking silence, cycles of harm, and victims/survivors impacts and understanding. In each session, we talk in circle groups, process in small groups, are presented with concepts and utilize experiential exercises.

We bring in guest speakers and survivors of violent crime. Our groups include heterosexual, LGBTQ, transgender, and gender non-conforming, individuals, youth “offenders”, and people of all racial identities. The groups are microcosms of what a yard/community can look like when people who have committed various crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, assault, and other crimes spend the time to build trust, relationship, safety and explore their causal factors and crimes together. We build an atmosphere in which there is no “right” way of doing the program. Realize is a 16 month, 128 hours , RAC credited, restorative circle program.

Program Name: Creating a Healing Society Program

Institutions: CAL, CCI, HDSP, SVSP, PBSP

In the administrative segregation units (ASU) we plan to provide our department-approved correspondence program to 12 cycles of classes of 25 participants (25 per cycle) for a total of 300 participants served per institution. This correspondence-based version of the CHS program provides access and individualized training that includes all topics covered in our in-person program, direct feedback from trained facilitators, and the provision of a substantial amount of reading material that will allow the isolated participants to achieve competence in the subject matter.

Three phases comprise the CHS program, each of which consists of four sessions, for a total of twelve sessions.

Phase I: Introduces participants to the underlying principles of the CHS program: The effects of trauma,1 what constitutes trauma, how individuals reenact trauma, how the impact of criminal victimization can result in long-lasting trauma, the incredible value of inner work, and how to create positive personal and societal change.

Phase II: Participants will be introduced to concepts and tools to identify how traumatic re-enactment has driven their past behavior, to recognize traumatic reenactment driving their current behavior, and to help them understand the trauma-driven behavior of others.

Phase III: This aspect of the program challenges participants to expand their horizons to include the needs of others; a strong emphasis on taking active steps to create opportunities for healing and the creation of a healing society; an empathetic perspective; and utilizing their unique skills and talents to do good for others.

Program Name: Pathways to Freedom with Applied Learning

Institution: CAC

Our YOP program builds on our PTF and ML curriculum and is modified to meet the specific needs of youth. Because youthful incarcerated individuals are particularly vulnerable to influence by the larger community, a mentor is assigned to each YOP Mentee as a positive role model, and peaceful, prosocial behavior is reinforced by the presence of a community of FTC participants within the prison. YOP Mentees receive guidance on how to respectfully respond to authority figures, and the YOP Mentors learn how to guide and direct younger individuals in a healthy way.

Institution: FSP

Our insight-oriented programming is designed to support actualization of FTC skills necessary for healing trauma, building emotional intelligence, and cultivating empathy and resiliency. Developed with input from licensed psychologists, FTC staff, as well as previously incarcerated FTC Mentor Leaders, all programs can be modified to meet the unique needs of each facility. Funding is proposed to support the PTF programming with two annual 2-day workshops, bi-monthly ML ILTAG classes and PTF Applied Learning curriculum with personalized feedback. The duration of the programming is one year (two 6-month modules).

Institutions: CCWF, SATF

This insight-oriented programming is designed to support “change from the inside” (FTC’s tagline) through the actualization of skills necessary for healing trauma building emotional intelligence, and cultivating empathy and resiliency regardless of the individual’s setting. The curriculum is module based (each packet takes one month to complete). The duration of the programming is one year, in two six-month segments. Additional advanced coursework is available if participants remain in AD-SEG/SHU. The Applied Learning program includes self-directed learning modules, called “growth work.” Up to 50 participants can be supported per yard.

Program Name: Camp Grace

Institution: PBSP

Our Father2Child Camp Grace (CG) is a 5-day music, art and harm reduction program, founded on the restorative justice principles of accountability, insight, empathy, responsibility and acknowledgment of the impact the participant’s crimes have on their children. Camp Grace provides a healing space for fathers to begin restoring the relationship with their children that was ruptured the very moment they committed their crime. Children (ages 8-14) and their fathers spend extended time together, allowing them to explore the direct impact of their dad’s crime on them and their family.

Activities such as art, drumming, dancing and writing serve as vital healing tools allowing participants to reduce the impact of stress & trauma often accompanied by parental incarceration. System impacted, formerly incarcerated and adult children of incarcerated parents, serve as camp counselors and assist the parents and children as they embark on a path of accountability, healing and restoring their relationship.

Program Name: Exercises in Empathy

Institution: CTF

The program is grounded in empathy, accountability and transformation and runs through the model of inside-out educational exchanges, bridging the gap between campus-based students and the incarcerated. The program will be offered once a week for 2 hours over an eight-week program cycle in fall, winter and spring and a four-week cycle in the summer. The corresponding curriculum includes detailed, structured openings, lectures, readings, and discussion questions for each week.

Program Name: Words Uncaged Program

Institution: CAL

WORDS UNCAGED is a cohesive hybrid of the best practices of Restorative and Transformative Justice, Arts and Narrative Therapy (healing by changing the script of your story), with curriculum and Instructional Materials such as Re-entry Success Stories, Current Justice Reforms, Parole Suitability Preparation, and intense Personal Insight and Skill Development designed for transformation. Class prompts and Instructional Materials that use positive and strength-based practice frameworks: teaching and encouraging creative communication and expression, fostering empathy, building self-esteem and worth, managing emotions and impulses, and developing life skills.

Narrative Therapy curriculum will foster creative writing, instill empathy from shared story-telling (other participants, victims, and additional guest speakers), help them dissect and heal from past traumatic childhood experiences, and how PTSD effects them as individuals, victims of crime, and all communities who experience violence. Our proposed program will provide (3) 12 months cycles on a bi-monthly basis.