1 / 9

Working with Felons

Discover effective strategies and resources to help ex-offenders find employment and achieve self-sustainability. Learn about the challenges they face and how to overcome them.

skip
Download Presentation

Working with Felons

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Working with Felons Facilitating a Job Search Workshop for Offenders in a 30 Day Reentry Program

  2. Some Statistics • One in twelve Oklahoma Adults have been in Prison or on Felony Probation • Oklahoma’s incarceration rate ranks 4th nationally for males and 1st nationally for females (DOC) • Between 600 and 700 offenders are released from DOC custody monthly • To be self-sustaining without any public assistance an ex-offender, with no dependents will need to earn a salary of $15,877 in Okla. Cty and a salary of $16,034 in Tulsa Cty

  3. How did I get here? • From ASCOG to OESC and you want me to do what? • Learning about the Department of Corrections • Unpacking images from the Media • “Prisoners are just like us except more so” • Trying to find my footing in an unfamiliar place

  4. Determining Needs • Listening to customers to find out what they REALLY need • Challenge everyone’s assumptions-especially your own • Ask open-ended questions—you’ll get a lot more data • Remember that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care (Dr. Stephen Covey)

  5. People Don’t Argue with their own data • Value the experience and information that ex-offenders give to you by playing it back to them • Offenders are making the transition from an institutional “dependency” gradually to a form of independence.

  6. Resources to the Rescue • Local pardon and parole officers • Workforce Oklahoma • Books No One is Unemployable by Debra L. Angel and Elisabeth E. Harney • Good Punishment: Christian Moral Practice and U.S. Imprisonment by James Samuel Logan • Going Home: Oklahoma Reentry Resource Guide 2011 (DOC website) • Employers

  7. Accountability • In my experience it’s not helpful to shield ex-offenders from being accountable • High expectations usually yield high performance (the Pygmalion Effect) • Work in tandem with employers, pardon and parole and the ex-offender to bring about the best results for everyone • Avoid being an enabler it only prolongs the suffering

  8. Education and Training Equals Employability • Key Train Pre-Tests to determine skill levels in Applied Math, Locating Information, and Reading for Information (help establish a base line for the ex-offender) • Help the ex-offender capitalize on skills that they have already acquired—everybody has plenty of transferrable skills

  9. Success is Possible! • Ex-offenders do get jobs—and being employed is probably the best guarantee that they will not go back to prison • Many offenders I have interviewed have employers who are waiting for them to get out of prison to return to work • I’ve repeatedly been told, by offenders who’ve found work with a felony, “If you want a job you can get a job, half the battle is your attitude.

More Related