This tool kit offers guidelines, tools, and resources to help education providers implement the Reentry Education Framework. The Framework promotes the development of an education continuum spanning facility—and community-based reentry education programs. It has five critical components—program infrastructure, strategic partnerships, education services, transition processes, and sustainability.
Reentry Education Framework
Program Infrastructure: Before building an education continuum, providers first need to ensure they have a solid foundation that includes a diverse funding base and in-kind resources; adequate space and equipment; well-trained, dedicated staff; a process for collecting and using data for program improvement; and administrative policies that support reentry education.
Strategic Partnerships: An education continuum depends on strategic partnerships among facility- and community-based education providers (if different) and the corrections system. It also requires education providers to work closely with other organizations providing support and employment services to adults while incarcerated and upon release.
Education Services: With a strong program infrastructure and strategic partnerships, reentry education providers should have the resources and capacity to deliver evidence-based education services aligned with approaches used in the community, such as using advanced technologies to enhance instruction. These services should help adults identify and pursue a career pathway that will enable them to obtain a living-wage job.
Transition Processes: Education services should be an integral part of the corrections system (e.g., during the intake and prerelease processes at a facility) so that adults can easily progress along their education path as their correctional status changes. However, because not all adults with criminal histories participate in educational services while incarcerated, the transition into community-based reentry education programs is also important.
Sustainability: As with any system, an education continuum — including its infrastructure, partnerships, education services, and position within the corrections system — requires early and ongoing work to ensure that it will persist through fluctuations in resources, staff turnover, and other changes.
Background
The Reentry Education Tool Kit was created by RTI International with support from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), to help education providers and their partners create a reentry education continuum in their communities.
Related Resources:
- The Reentry Education Framework: Guidelines for Providing High-Quality Education for Adults Involved in the Criminal Justice System
- Reentry Education Model Implementation Study: Promoting Reentry Success through Continuity of Educational Opportunities
- A Reentry Education Model: Supporting Education and Career Advancement for Low-Skill Individuals in Corrections
- Improved Reentry Education: Voices of Reentry [link TBD]