As workers put the finishing touches on a renovated building at Moccasin Bend, Karen McReynolds looks to the community to help offer more than a “pat on the back” to women re-entering society.
Beginning next month The Next Door, a faith-based resident transition program, will open its doors to both women leaving the prison system and volunteers who want to help them.
The goal, Ms. McReynolds said, is to make the transition from life in corrections to a more productive and healthy life in the community as seamless as possible.
Though more than 750 women have received help re-entering society from Next Door’s Nashville office, those who are from the Chattanooga area often had to restart the whole process when they returned home, she said.
Ninety-nine percent of women in the program have a substance abuse problem, 85 percent have experienced some type of abuse and 74 percent have a diagnosable mental illness, Ms. McReynolds said.
“When you have trauma after trauma after trauma, you have to do more than just give them a pat on the back,” she said.
The process involves a six-month rehabilitation and training program that works with women on areas such as substance abuse, mental health problems, trauma, life skills and work force development.
“It’s a proven model,” Ms. McReynolds said. “It’s not just ‘here, go with God and we’ll pray for your success.’ It’s having real, concrete tools that will make it highly unlikely that they will be incarcerated again.”
The program began in a downtown Nashville building in 2004, said Chief Executive Officer Linda Leathers.
The center will be able to serve 24 people. Annual operating costs are estimated at $375,000.
Twenty-eight percent of funding comes from local and federal government grants, she said. The remaining money comes from a combination of private donors, corporations and foundations.
About Next Door* The Next Door is a faith-based nonprofit program that serves as a resident transitional program for women leaving prison.* The original program began in a 22,000-square-foot vacant building in downtown Nashville in 2004 and has since expanded to center in Knoxville. The Chattanooga branch is scheduled to open in June.* For more information, visit www.thenextdoor.org. To volunteer locally, call The Next Door at 423- 933-0112.Source: The Next Door
Next Door has a 10-year lease on the 22,000-square-foot building.
Ms. Leathers said she talked with Tennessee Department of Correction and the Board of Probation and Parole over the last few years to identify areas of the state with needs for women-specific programs.
The program shows a 15 percent recidivism rate among women who complete the six-month program.
A key benefit to working with women is the effect it has on families, she said.
“If we can work with a woman to change her life, we can change a generation,” she said.
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