This issue brief identifies the activities undertaken by 22 Pathway Home grantees (which received funds in 2021) to help participants after they were released from prison or jail. The brief is one of a series from an evaluation of the Pathway Home grant initiative (administered by the U.S. Department of Labor), which required services to be delivered to participants prior to and after release from incarceration, ideally with the same case manager.  Key observations are as follows:

Grantees’ post-release services focused on 1) meeting participants’ needs (such as for stable housing, health services, substance abuse treatment, and obtaining key identification cards) and 2) helping participants become employed or enter occupational training, despite the stigma of a criminal record and the difficulty of maintaining employment while complying with the requirements of community supervision and mandated treatment or services. To address participants’ basic needs, grantees engaged with community services agencies, reentry networks or councils, and legal service providers. To help participants find employment or training, grantees reached out to employers through such activities as attending chamber of commerce and workforce development board meetings, hiring dedicated staff to conduct employer outreach, and establishing industry advisory boards. Also, to encourage participants to engage with services after release, grantees began building relationships with participants inside correctional facilities, collected multiple points of contact at intake, and offered incentives for reaching program milestones.

Other issue briefs from the study of the Pathway Home grantees provide a snapshot of the grantees and features of pre-release services delivered in partnership with correctional institutions.