This program will help professionals identify the strengths and resources inherent in the family as a fundamental support system for individuals upon their release from prison or jail. It is designed to stimulate new ways of thinking about the family as a resource to enhance offender reentry and supervision and to increase public safety.
Family, broadly defined, includes individuals' blood relatives and friends who play a significant role in a person's life. Family members are essential resources who may ease the transition from confinement to the community or positively enhance the community supervision process. Unfortunately, the family is too often viewed as presenting challenges rather than as a source of shared history and untapped resources.
The goal of this broadcast is to encourage participants to think about: enhancing the reentry and supervision processes through contextual thinking about the family; tapping the strengths of families and communities as means of good government to enhance public safety; utilizing family and community resources after government intervention has ended; and addressing the challenge of negotiating multiple services that may be used by the family to enhance positive outcomes.