Piloting a Tool for Reentry A Promising Approach to Engaging Family Members
Overview
Research shows that incarcerated individuals who maintain contact with supportive family members have better outcomes—such as stable housing and employment—when they return to the community. Yet many people who work in corrections do not know how to help individuals on their caseload draw on these social supports. This report describes the Family Justice Program’s Reentry is Relational project, which implemented the Relational Inquiry Tool (RIT)—a series of questions designed to prompt conversations with incarcerated men and women about the supportive people in their lives—in prisons in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The report also discusses results from surveys and interviews with incarcerated men and women and their family members that were conducted as part of the implementation process.
