Family Justice recently convened a three-day meeting, "Coming Home: An International Dialogue on the Role of Family in Prison Reentry," at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy.

Read a brief about the "Coming Home" meeting here.

Read the "Coming Home" participants' statements about family and reentry here.

Family Justice encourages people to distribute these papers and to consider them when developing and revising reentry-related policy, practice, and programming, as well as in other planning efforts.

Sixteen people from 14 countries traveled to Bellagio for the "Coming Home" meeting. Participants represented government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and academia, and came from developing, “developed,” and post-conflict countries. Members of the group are leaders and innovative practitioners in their respective fields, including family systems, corrections and community corrections, crime prevention, HIV/AIDS and other health issues, law, human rights, research, evaluation, direct service, education, and victim advocacy.

Natalie Wright-Umoh and I just returned from Richmond, where we trained a committed group of community corrections officers from the Richmond Division of Justice Services and officers from the Virginia DOC's District One Probation and Parole. The officers, led by their chiefs Rhonda Gilmer and Michael Wright, respectively, participated in a three-day interactive training designed to help them integrate strength-based, family-focused tools into their daily practice.

Above: Officers in Richmond participate in an activity that demonstrates the value of collaboration and teamwork. (Photo by Natalie Wright-Umoh)

In post-training evaluations, most staff reported plans to use supportive inquiry and strength-based language and questions. As one probation officer stated, “I will speak to clients with more supportive words.” Several staff reported plans to ask strength-based questions and place more emphasis on family participation and discussion of the family's role. One supervising officer wrote, "I will help [staff] use the approach and continue to discuss the approach. I will help them try to take little steps rather than try to change overnight.”

It is a privilege to work in Richmond, where we have trained more than 60 people from government agencies and community-based organizations working with families that have a loved one involved in the justice system. Our next and final efforts will focus on bringing everyone together and developing a strategy to more fully integrate this approach in Richmond.

Youth specialists at the W.J. Maxey Boys Training School, a juvenile justice facility in Michigan, were among the staff who participated in training on the Juvenile Relational Inquiry Tool last week. After administering the tool with a youth he knows well, one staff member shared his surprise over learning about a relative for the first time.

This anecdote and others suggest that the tool can provide a user-friendly way for staff to learn about young people’s social support. Staff in Michigan continue to pilot the Juvenile Relational Inquiry Tool. Their feedback, as well as input from pilot testers in Arizona and Ohio, will help shape the final version of the tool.

Our colleagues at Women's Prison Association recently posted a moving video about the organization's work. You'll find it on WPA's home page or you can watch it here.