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Capital Campaign: The agency has embarked upon a capital
campaign to raise sufficient funds to provide a training
complex for four of our prison training sites. Over the
years we have worked with the Department of Corrections at
each of our sites to provide tool storage and training
facilities to carry out our community services. In addition
the agency is in need of a new central office, our current
facility in a house has long since been outgrown. To begin
this process, the agency has purchased a building in the
Hempfield Industrial Park near SCI Greensburg for a training
complex for that site. Within two years we plan to construct
a new office there.
Expand CReW: Currently we provide community based
pre-release vocational training to inmates from seven state
prisons in Western Pennsylvania. In construction skills,
poorer homeowners and non-profits in the communities
surrounding each prison have benefitted for over 33 years.
It's time to encourage our funders that this component of
the continuum be expanded to the other prisons in Eastern
Pennsylvania.
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Pre-Release Counseling: We are in the process of
completing a pilot project constructed around emotional
intelligence. In reviewing our outcomes and matching them
with the concepts of the "Principles of Effective
Correctional Intervention," we plan to revise our program
and pursue support and funding. We plan to increase focus on
the fusion of emotional development with cognitive and
behavioral development. These three working together with
each level of interaction is the process for success. Recent
studies of parole violators proves the need for such
counseling.
Rebuilding Communities:
Many neighborhoods within
our cities are in need of construction services. Employers
within the construction trades need an employee with basic
skills who wants to work. We are designing a program that
takes pre-release inmates out of the halfway house system
and trains them. Following their training they are matched
with employers. We are looking to model the program in
Pittsburgh, then move across the state to Philadelphia.
Within six to seven years we could be "Rebuilding the
Communities of Pennsylvania." Restitution will be paid
during training to the communities of the Commonwealth.
Ray Thompson
OOR President
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