The Last Mile
Mission
The Last Mile (TLM) unlocks the human and economic potential of justice-impacted people through education and technology training.
Partnership
In April of 2024, The Last Mile, in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Correction, launched an innovative technical skills program in the John J. Moran Medium Security Correctional. The Web Development Program teaches students to create websites and full-stack web applications using modern technologies, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, react, Node, Express, and MongoDB.
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Reentry Campus Program (RCP)
Mission
The Reentry Campus Program provides currently and formerly incarcerated individuals with an affordable pathway to accredited postsecondary education and certification programs that are infused with the reentry process.
Partnership
The Reentry Campus Program (RCP) equips incarcerated students with academic counseling, study materials, and guidance to prepare for DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST) in 38 subject areas. RCP empowers participants through education, mentorship, and support, enabling successful reintegration into society while reducing recidivism.
RCP's Discharge Planner provides personalized counseling, including academic advising, career guidance, and connections to community resources. Participants also develop a professional portfolio highlighting their skills, achievements, and educational progress.
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Building Futures
Mission
Our Mission is to meet employer need for skilled workers through Registered Apprenticeship, creating an equitable path to family-sustaining careers for Rhode Islanders.
Partnership
Building Futures Inside provides hands-on construction training and classroom learning to people incarcerated at the ACI. Upon their release, Building Futures supports their transition to our community-based pre-apprenticeship program and placement in a Building and Construction Trades registered apprenticeship program, removing significant barriers to stable, family-sustaining employment that formerly incarcerated Rhode Islanders encounter.
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Vantage Point, Inc
Mission
Our mission is to help you when you are dealing with mood or anxiety disorders, trauma, addiction, or interpersonal violence. We strive to build on your resilience, with supportive services, evidence-based treatment modalities provided by licensed and experienced professionals, who will meet you “where you are” in your decision to create a new perspective for your life.
Partnership
Since 2018 the Phoenix Project, an evidence-based prison reentry program, has worked with moderate to high risk offenders, to develop, and implement, enhanced life skills to facilitate healthy lifestyles, families, and careers. Providing access to employers, apprenticeship programs, and educators, while incarcerated, improves understanding of the goals and pathways required for success. Reducing recidivism by managing their mood, health, relationships, decision making, and organizational skills helps build a strong workforce, confidence, and safer community.
Batterers’ Intervention Program
Since 1999 Vantage Point has conducted the RI state certified Batterers’ Intervention Program behind the walls and in the community. Providing BIP groups in prison builds a foundation for understanding the multiple factors that lead to serious crimes against significant others. Developing a skill set to manage mood, improve decision making, and reduce familial violence is complex but possible. For many, rehabilitation starts in prison.
The Phoenix Project at Vantage Point
Phoenix Odyssey
Mission
Phoenix Odyssey provides pre and post release education, support and recovery services for people who are justice involved to facilitate successful transition and reintegration to their communities, and significantly reduce recidivism.
Partnership
Phoenix Odyssey and RIDOC have been working in a partnership to offer the justice involved population programs that reduce recidivism and support success. These programs include access to Civil Legal Advisors, mental health and substance misuse treatment, financial management, health and wellness, entrepreneurship, access to accredited career programs, peer navigators, and a speakers’ bureau.
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Man Up, Inc
Mission
To provide a broad range of unique workforce development and higher educational opportunities, resources, and support services to formerly incarcerated men of color, who have not been afforded the opportunity to aspire to more progressive goals; while simultaneously addressing the social, financial and legal issues that create barriers to employment and education.
Partnership
Man Up, Inc and the RIDOC share a mutual commitment to ensuring that offenders released into the communities have a comprehensive transition plan in place which includes a strong community-based organization that has the capacity to carry out both agencies goals, objectives, and policies.
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NEADS Inc.
Mission
NEADS World Class Service Dogs change lives.
Partnership
NEADS breeds, raises, trains, and matches World Class Service Dogs with children and adults, including veterans, who are deaf or have a physical disability, as well as children with autism and other developmental disabilities. NEADS Assistance Dogs are partnered with professionals in the classroom, ministry, hospital, and courthouse settings. NEADS has partnered with the Rhode Island Department of Correction since 2005, when the Prison PUP Program launched at John J. Moran Medium Security prison. Since that time, approximately 200 inmates have participated as handlers and 300 dogs have passed through the program at JJ Moran (as of 2024). NEADS is thankful for the dedication and support of the prison staff that is instrumental in ensuring the program runs smoothly.
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New England Institute of Technology (NEIT)
Mission
NEIT is a career-based, technical institution with a hands-on learning model across all degree and workforce training programs. NEIT’s Shipbuilding and Advanced Manufacturing Institute (SAMI) was developed in 2013 with the goal to build a pipeline of skilled workers to meet the growing workforce demands of Rhode Island’s shipbuilding and manufacturing industries. Industry employers have, and continue to play a critical role in, developing training programs that are relevant to their current and future workforce needs. Since 2013, thousands of individuals, from welders and machinists to auto body and automotive technicians, have been trained in various trades. They have learned skills upon which they can build a life-long career, working in industries including national defense and transportation.
Partnership
Starting in 2024, NEIT, as a training partner in the Pathway Home initiative, will deliver 350 hours of welding training to justice-involved individuals as part of a comprehensive plan to successfully transition incarcerated individuals home. Trainees will learn skills, develop resumes, prepare for job interviews, and earn college credits while receiving supportive services from partner agencies with the goal to obtain employment that will lead to a career and hope for the future.
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Polaris MEP
Mission
Polaris MEP, a statewide nonprofit organization and business unit of the University of Rhode Island Research Foundation, is on a mission to help Rhode Island’s manufacturers (and economy) grow by providing training and services to support manufacturers’ top line, bottom line, and skilled-worker pipeline. Polaris MEP supports several industry-driven, barrier reduction intensive hands-on skills training programs for organizations that train unemployed and underemployed Rhode Islanders in a variety of manufacturing-based careers.
Partnership
In 2022, Polaris MEP and Community College of Rhode Island launched the “Fast Track to CNC Manufacturing” training at the DOC Women’s Facility with funding from RI DLT’s Real Jobs Rhode Island program, which continues to serve 12-14 pre-release individuals per year. In July of 2024, Polaris MEP was awarded a U.S. Department of Labor “Pathway Home” grant, expanding pre-release training options and coalescing reentry partners around a client-centered and career-focused approach. Through Pathway Home, 150 pre-release individuals will receive hands-on manufacturing skills training from CCRI, New England Institute of Technology, and JARC Rhode Island, wrap-around supportive services from Phoenix Odyssey and Reentry Campus Program, plus mentoring and job placement support from both Polaris MEP and RIMTA through December 2027.