It’s been quite a year………
To say that 2019 has been “quite a year” might be an understatement. Please be looking forward to the End-of-Year Special Edition of our in2Action newsletter in early December. In this edition, however, I wanted to provide just an overview.
In 2019 we added two new houses for a total of 20 additional beds. The first house, the Shiloh House opened in July and increased the number of people we can serve in Phase-1 from nine to nineteen. The increased capacity has been beneficial in several ways. First, because in2Action residents are required to participate in daily Skill Drills while in Phase-1, the increased number of people has increased our average group size of 3-4 people, to 7-9 people. The larger groups have led to much richer interaction among and between those participating.
Second, increased Phase-1 capacity has allowed us to accept more new people. From the onset, it has been in2Action’s goal to be able to serve anyone who is coming back to the Columbia/Boone County area who wants to come to in2Action. Until we opened the Shiloh House, we still found ourselves having to turn away people from the Columbia area who were looking for our help. Because we can now accept everyone (who are otherwise eligible) who is from the Columbia area, we consider ourselves to have reached the saturation point. While we receive applications continually from people across the state and having to turn them away, we do not believe its in the best interest of our community to begin trying to relocate these individuals to central Missouri.
The second house we opened has a capacity to serve 10 people, however, this house is a deviation of the in2Action model and instead was created to specifically serve people in our community who are enrolled in the Justice Reinvestment Treatment Program (JRI-TP). Please see the “Partners Corner” entry of this newsletter for more detailed information about this new collaboration between in2Action, the Missouri Department of Corrections, the Missouri Department of Mental Health, Phoenix Programs, and Compass Health. While opening two new houses and increasing the total number of people we can serve from 27 to 46 is a big deal, it’s not all that’s happening.
In2Action has opened the Reentry Opportunity Center (The ROC) will be a one-stop reentry resource center. The ROC is an innovative idea grounded in the research that is expected to provide the supports and resources newly released people need so they can become the responsible, productive, and law-abiding citizens they were created to be. In2Action has also launched a Capital Campaign so we can acquire several properties adjacent to our current operations. We are so excited about this new acquisition which will add long-term housing options for our program graduates. For readers who are considering their year-end giving, please stay tuned. In the Year-End Special Edition, I will be discussing both The ROC and the Capital Campaign in much greater detail as well as sharing with you our most recent outcome evaluation demonstrating that in2Action really works.
Recent Comments