The success rate of English 304 Community Education's six-week intensive job preparation program at FCI Morgantown is astounding. Starting with just six laptop computers, a printer, and Microsoft Office, this program has developed into a full course of job preparation for prisoners leaving jail.
While in the beginning, the program focused on the creation of résumés and cover letters, as well as a career fair at the end of the program, we have grown to having over 30 volunteers that assist in interview preparation, seminars on professionalism, assistance in finding transportation to and from jobs, and following up with ex-inmates to see how their jobs are working out.
This type of preparation and follow up has helped decrease recidivism rates greatly. As our program continued to grow, we turned to the National Institute of Justice, the National Institue of Corrections, and the Office of Correctional Education for help. These groups have implemented successful job preparation, practice, and placement for prisoners. The key is finding groups - law enforcement officers, various companies willing to hire ex-inmates, and those business gurus, that are all able to work together to effectively build a practicing work environment for the prisoners.
We are slowly trying to implement this sort of program - day to day jobs with a hierarchy of job positions so that inmates are able to learn how to work as a team, progress within the job market, and establish a sense of timeliness and responsibility.
As we get more volunteers and receive the funding, we hope to implement this "work study" at FCI Morgantown.
Photo taken from: http://www.lacp.org/Graphics/PrisonersWorking.jpg
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