OUR INVOLVEMENT

The following are some highlights of programs and activities that Tanya and Charlie  have been involved in.

• Learning to Live Integrity Curriculum, faith based life skills programs in the men’s minimum and women’s minimum and medium security facilities. 

• Tanya and Charlie  facilitated a Fathers Behind Bars (Inside Out Dads) program  at the men's minimum facility

• Weekly Bible studies at the men's minimum facility.

• Weekly showing at the women's prison, DVD's of the broadcast Free Indeed and Bible studies.

• Job Readiness classes conducted in the ACI minimum security prison and at The Blessing Way reentry agency on the outside.

• Former team members at the ACI for interfaith based programming inside and outside the prison system.

• Guest speakers and trainers in over 30 churches from all New England states and many churches in New York City.  (Training for certification, awareness events, emphasis days, and rallies). 

• Guest speakers at The Rhode Island Reentry Summit, the University of Connecticut (UCONN)  Roger Williams University, and a Community Services event at Stanford Connecticut.

• Tanya was a mentor (Open Doors Second Chance Mentoring Program ) for five years  to a women who was previously incarcerated, visiting her on the inside and giving support to her and family members on the outside.

• We created a Interfaith Prison Ministry training manual from various sources that can be downloaded from the Atlantic Union Conference website. The contents include chapters on Starting a Prison Ministry, Training for the Jail or Prison, Manipulation, Volunteer Services and Support, Starting a Reentry ministry, and Writing Letters (Pen-Pal Program)

• Participate in Connecticut reentry monthly roundtables.

• Started a (soon to be non-profit organization) called "ANEWSTART" which is a faith based organization that promotes a holistic approach to: Reentry, Recovery, and Renewal. 

• We have given multiple presentations with healthy food samples at a group called Homecomers (Anchor Recovery) which consists of previously incarcerated men and women who are in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

• "ANEWSTART" reentry presentation to a group of pastor's spouses.

• Prison Ministry presentation to the Atlantic Union Conference Executive committee.

• Our churches and member's families continue to provide hundreds of pounds of men’s and women’s clothes to the prison, homeless shelters, and families.

• Provision of backpacks that include toiletries, list of service providers, emergency numbers, and Bibles to women being released to homelessness. 

• Training for writing letters to inmates, emphasizing the strict guidelines: the do's and the don'ts of a pen-pal program.