Includes Goals & Strategies for the Delaware Women’s Alternatives to Violence (AVP) Re-entry Project

What is A Center for Relational Living; its work and its leaders?

A Center for Relational Living is a life affirming organization, with a focus on building community, which includes diverse cultures and disparate points of view, in order to reveal the interconnection of all people.   
 
Our mission is to create communities where core values of equality, compassion, trust, balance, and authentic communication are expressed and experienced.   

The work of A Center for Relational Living is accomplished through mentoring, facilitation, dialogue, counseling & case management, teaching, support groups, and fun. 

Our founding board members are Rev. Paula A. Maiorano, Unitarian Universalist ordained minister, John A. Shuford, AVP State Coordinator, Gayle R. Reuter, United Church of Religious Science ordained minister, formerly incarcerated person, Haneef Salaam, alumnus of Public Allies Delaware, and Tom St. John, Founder and President of Phoenix Financial Network. 

How does the Delaware Women’s AVP Re-entry Project fulfill the vision and mission of A Center for Relational Living? 

True community can only happen when all of the members of any group feel a sense of belonging and connection to the whole.  All too frequently, our systemic societal structures and human perspectives and categories divide us into worthy and unworthy, and therefore included and marginalized people.  Many incarcerated women are among our state community’s most marginalized citizens.  Most are victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, vulnerable to substance abuse, which often led them to incarceration, and with anger issues that are sometimes triggered into unacceptable behavior.  Such women need assistance, and yet while incarcerated, Delaware’s women receive less programming and counseling than our incarcerated men.  One instance of this is that the men’s prisons have in-house mental health programs and the women’s prison does not.  In fact, the Director of Treatment for the women’s prison stated that their only anger management program was AVP. 

What is the Alternatives to Violence Project? 

The Alternatives to Violence Project [AVP] began 32 years ago providing 18-22 hour intensive workshops to prison inmates for the purpose of helping them change their attitudes, behavior and lifestyle.  As an all-volunteer effort, it has spread throughout the US and overseas.  Research shows it reduces inmate problem behaviors by 60% and recidivism by 47%.  It is highly respected by inmates, prison staff and Department of Correction officials and is not religious, yet is very spiritual.  The volunteer interfaith coordinating team works with volunteer inmate trainers to provide these highly effective workshops.  All inmates are eligible to participate in the programs. Often long waiting lists exist. 

What is the Delaware Women’s AVP Re-entry Project, who are the regular staff? What are their qualifications?

A Center for Relational Living (ACRL) has developed the Delaware Women’s AVP Re-entry program to help women [who have taken AVP] successfully stabilize their lives upon release from prison.  Our program includes case management and seeks a mentor for each returning woman from Partnering Faith Communities.  The mentor relationship is expected to last for 2 to 2 1/2 years, during which time the Partnering Faith Community mentor will meet with their mentee weekly before and after release in order to provide emotional, informational and resource support.  The Partnering Faith Community is expected to provide an opportunity for us to offer education to their members regarding the opportunities to improve the criminal justice system in Delaware. 

Rev. Paula A. Maiorano and John A. Shuford are the regular staff of A Center for Relational Living, and its first project, the Delaware Women’s AVP Re-entry Project.   

Paula is a former small business entrepreneur and grassroots organizer, who was ordained to the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1996.  Paula is an AVP coordinator and trainer, a marriage and family therapist, President of the Delaware Re-entry Consortium, and a member of the Delaware Criminal Justice Council’s Re-entry Sub-committee.  

John is the Coordinator of AVP/Delaware, Clerk of the International Committee of AVP/USA, Inc., and past President, Vice President and Treasurer of AVP/USA, Inc.  He is President of Conflict Resolution Services, Inc., which provides AVP type training to corrections staff and was awarded the International Association of Correctional Training Personnel’s “2004 Award of Excellence.”  

What are the Goals of the Re-entry Project and what Strategies have been developed to accomplish these goals? 

1. To assist former female offenders returning to society from the Delores Baylor Prison in New Castle, DE and Delaware’s Work Release and Treatment Centers to lead stable lives in the community.  Qualities that define a stable life include living arrangements, work, parenting ability and relationships with their children, economic situation, healthcare and health insurance, social relations, physical and emotional wellness, the ability to access community and government resources and to use these resources well.  Spiritual deepening in whatever faith tradition followed is not measurable, and it is a significant factor in the success of the returnees.

      Goal A will be accomplished as follows.

1. Case management as described above.
2. Pre-release program as described above.

c.  Partnering Faith Communities will be recruited through intentional networking, presentations to interested groups, and workshops arranged for members of both black and white churches to train together in the Basic AVP Workshop. Once the Partnering Faith Community commits to the Re-entry Project and mentors are developed, returnee are connected to suitable mentors from that community.  The Partnering Faith Community covenants to offer support to both the mentor and to the returnee. Mentors and supporting church members will receive training in AVP programs and in relational mentoring skills. 

The AVP Mentor connection will be established up to 6 months prior to release, and continue for at least 2 years after release.   

B. Assist former female offenders to bring AVP trainings to partnering faith communities, local schools and community centers. 

            Goal B will be accomplished as follows.

a. AVP Delaware and ACRL will work with returnees to help them establish connections, and to form the training team for each workshop. An inmate trainer from Crest North Work Release and Treatment Center co-facilitated the Manna Christian Fellowship Training, and another returnee, a former inmate facilitator from Baylor Prison, will co-facilitate at First Unitarian of Wilmington, DE Oct 12 –14, 2007.  Returnee trainers bring not only the perspective from the state’s criminal justice and prison systems, but also the perspective shaped through the lens of their African American heritage.

C. To create an AVP female ex-offender community of mutual support to one another.

            Goal C will be accomplished as follows.

a. Pre-release weekly support groups facilitated by the staff of A Center for Relational Living, and ongoing regular support groups upon release.

b. Peer Support Group for Mentors

c. Regular combination support group (Mentors & Returnees)

d. Encouraging and facilitating an informal network of support among returnees. 

e. Continuing Education in AVP Principles & Skills, through additional  workshops offered by ACRL. 

D. To create an AVP female ex-offender community for public awareness of the systemic causes which lead to incarceration of the poor and minority groups, advocacy for change, and for participation in public dialogue.

            Goal D will be accomplished as follows.

a. Church covenants will include an agreement to arrange educational and dialogue programming for members and the larger community served by the church.

b. A Center for Relational Living and AVP Delaware will arrange for joint educational, dialogue events for leadership, and opportunities for advocacy for members of the participating partnering faith community, with returnee participation/leadership.

c. Staff will include returnees in the workshops and presentations whenever possible. 

E. Returnees will be involved in the creation of every aspect of the AVP Re-Entry Program.

       Goal E will be accomplished as follows

1. Following the project’s start up retreat, our board has made an intentional effort to recruit returnees who can be oriented to the board in the board’s twice annual retreats.  The board’s next retreat is in October and at that time three of eight board members will be returnees.
2. Ongoing returnee programming will involve returnees in its

development and implementation.

F.  Staff and Board will monitor success of our project through use of the Logic Model for Outcomes. 

G. Develop a Logic Model and regularly update our Outcomes.

Why is a prison re-entry program important and necessary?

In Delaware over 7000 sentenced inmates are returning to our communities every year, and over 60% of them [4200] will return to prison within five years.  According to national statistics, those who return will commit crimes with an average cost of $100,000 per year for four years and the cost of apprehension, prosecution, adjudication and confinement is an additional $100,000.  Thus, the cost of those 4200 returning to prison is about $5,200 per Delaware taxpaying household each year.  We pay for this in taxes, the price of goods we purchase, the cost of insurance, etc.   

Another way we pay for not having re-entry programs is in the lost creativity/productivity and tax paying dollars these citizens would provide.  Add to this that most of these women are mothers and the impact of being in prison on their children, their families and on the schools.  Further is the incalculable loss of a sense of safety and connection in our communities, which has been eroding over the past decades.  Not too long ago the parents in our neighborhoods would hold our children accountable for inappropriate behavior.  Now it’s the exception, rather than the rule.  This is all related to how well we support or don’t support those of our citizens returning from prison.  Reentry programs have a profound impact on these women.