Serving Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, Connections to Success Reports Lower Recidivism Rates

ST. LOUIS - April 25, 2016 - PRLog -- April 24-30 is National Reentry Week.  Connections to Success invites the local community to join in celebrating and encouraging individuals who have successfully integrated back into the community and those currently on this journey.  Consider volunteering or donating financial resources to assist individuals and children in achieving economic independence.  Visit http://www.connectionstosuccess.org to discover meaningful ways to invest your time, talent and treasure as a mentor, volunteer and/or donor.

Jane (we've changed her name to protect her identity), a single mother, had made a series of choices that resulted in her incarceration. She was determined, though, to change her life and the future for her child. Once released from prison, she enrolled at Connections to Success, utilized every resource available to her and shortly thereafter, secured full-time employment, purchased a vehicle, and moved into her own place. Today, she runs her own business and is an instructor at a career-training institution.

About 900,000 inmates are released each year in the United States according to national crime statistics. Missouri frees about 20,000 people annually.  Across Missouri, an average of 36.1% of individuals released from prison in fiscal year 2012 were back behind bars within 24 months*.  Shocking and expensive, this cycle costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

In 2001, Connections to Success heard their participants repeatedly recount barriers they faced in successfully integrating back into the community. Some were having difficulty landing a job with a criminal history. Others struggled with juggling a job, family, and household after the predictability of institutionalization. Often times, it was easier to fall back into negative behavior because they lacked the tools and support to provide for themselves and their families.

Finding no other effective solution, Connections to Success developed an approach engaging the whole person (their passions, past, and family). They developed a team to work intensively to empower individuals to achieve life goals like employment, education, career advancement, improved family relationships, and setting up a college savings account for their children. Seeing that short-term programs yield only short-term results, Connections to Success committed to walking with the individuals it serves for the entirety of their life journey.

For 15 consecutive years, Connections has been implementing its evidence-based model called Pathways to Success. Connections to Success' model was independently evaluated by Mathematica Policy Research and Social Policy Research Initiatives, and demonstrates that 92% of participants who are paired with a trained mentor do not return to prison within 1 year (compared to a state average of 79.2% who do not return to prison within 1 year as reported for fiscal year 2012*). Seventy-percent of Connections participants retain jobs after 9 months, and 82% experience an earnings change within 6 months of employment.

For several years, Connections to Success has been providing educational programs and support to the children of its participants. Recently, the organization has expanded these resources to include scholarship funding for children of currently or previously incarcerated parents through its newest program - Ava's Grace Scholarship Foundation. In existence for 6 years, Ava's Grace Scholarship Foundation was previously an independent nonprofit, providing scholarships for higher education and mentoring to children of incarcerated parents in the state of Missouri. Ava's Grace currently supports 16 scholars from across the state who attend colleges and universities across the the country. The annual scholarship deadline is April 15.  By coming under the Connections to Success umbrella, scholarships will be available to children across the Connections to Success footprint of Missouri, Illinois and Kansas.

With the expansion of scholarships, Connections is able to invest in children on the front end - to prevent having to provide services to these kids on the back end. It's known if children of incarcerated adults are linked with educational resources before adulthood, the risk of those children repeating the behaviors of their parents dramatically decreases.

About Connections to Success

Connections to Success was founded 18 years ago and today has two locations in the St. Louis Metro Area as well as two locations in the Kansas City Metro Area. The organization identifies adults who are committed to change and supports them with hope, resources, and a proven plan that helps them overcome barriers to employment and launch a new trajectory toward a whole life. Since 2000, Connections to Success has walked alongside more than 7,650 adults in their journey towards economic independence.

Connections to Success - Renewing Lives, Transforming Communities.

Contact:
Marcy Bursac
Senior Director of Resource Development
Connections to Success
(314) 803-3334
mbursac@connectionstosuccess.org

*as cited in the 2014 Missouri Reentry Process - Report to the Governor, page 69 (published Jan. 2015).  View the full report at: doc.mo.gov/Documents/publications/Offender%20Profile%20FY14.pdf