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For over 30 years, Centerforce has provided groundbreaking social service programs to those impacted by incarceration.
Committed to successful programming, Centerforce has documented the effectiveness of many of its programs and has become one of the nation's leading agencies implementing evidence-based programs for prisoners and their loved ones.
Highlighted Division Programs
Children and Family Services
Prisoner Services
Transitional Services
Information Services
Children and Family Services
- Families Moving Forward
The Families Moving Forward program provides intensive family reunification services with clients and their family members at the Marin County Jail.
Program participants develop and complete family reunification service plans, attend weekly parenting groups, access community resource and support systems and as a
result incarcerated parents and their families stabilize.
- Leaders in Future Environments (LIFE) Project
Leaders in Future Environments (LIFE) Project aims to strengthen and promote leadership in youth throughout the San Francisco Bay Area who have been impacted by parental incarceration. The LIFE Project provides one-on-one mentoring, group activities every six weeks, and an annual retreat.
Flyers available in pdf:
Become a Mentor with the LIFE Project
Become a Mentee with the LIFE Project
LIFE Project Brochure
- San Quentin State Prison Visitor's Program
Families, friends and loved ones often travel hours to San Quentin for a visit and need a place to rest, change clothes or have their children visit and then spend some
time with their loved one alone. Centerforce operates "The House on the Hill" Visitor's Center outside the gates of San Quentin State Prison.
The visitor center provides a comfortable place to sit and unwind, a clothing exchange, transportation and supervised activities for children during visiting hours.
- The Yellow House at San Quentin
Centerforce operates a second site immediately outside of the gates of San Quentin called the "Yellow House".
Projects that operate out of the "Yellow House" include the First United Methodist Church's First Friday Lunch Program and the San Quentin Families Project.
The First Friday Lunch Program provides lunches for families waiting to visit loved ones.
The San Quentin Families Project seeks to support family communication by providing letter writing kits and postage to families and incarcerated fathers.
Prisoner Services
- Peer Education
The Peer Education Program currently operates at three institutions, San Quentin State Prison, the Central California Women's Facility and Valley State Prison for Women.
Trained peer educators at these sites work to raise awareness, provide education, and serve as a resource for fellow prisoners on a wide variety of health issues such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, substance abuse prevention, disability and child support.
Prison peer educators facilitate workshops, provide one-on-one outreach and support and coordinate prison-wide special events.
Through these activities, the peer educators reach and support thousands of men and women each year with information and referrals.
- Healthy Relationships
Healthy Relationships is a small-group intervention for men and women living with HIV/AIDS. The intervention focuses on developing communication skills, building self
confidence, creating realistic expectations and making decisions about participants' relationships.
Centerforce is implementing Healthy Relationships groups with prisoners at the California Medical Facility and Central California Women's Facility.
- Free to Succeed
The Free to Succeed program provides adult education, literacy and tutoring groups to prisoners at San Quentin State Prison five nights per week.
The project focuses on basic literacy and supports students to communicate with their families, work towards their GED and achieve other educational,
personal and professional goals.
- No More Tears
No More Tears is an ongoing forum for prisoners and concerned community leaders formed in response to violence and crime in communities including Richmond,
Oakland and beyond. No More Tears participants dialogue and seek understanding of the obstacles, strategies, options and solutions for decreasing community violence.
The program also seeks to support the successful return of prisoners to the community as leaders in the violence prevention movement.
Transitional Services
- Healthy Outcomes Project
The Healthy Outcomes Project (HOP) is an HIV Risk reduction counseling program that links clients to a wide range of community-based service programs,
including housing, food, employment, substance abuse treatment and medical care services for men and women returning to the community from San Quentin State Prison,
Central California Women's Facility, and Valley State Prison for Women.
- Transitional Case Management Program (TCMP)
Centerforce provides transitional case management for men and women living with HIV returning to eight Bay Area counties.
TCMP case managers work to firmly link parolees living with HIV with medical care, long-term case management, parole services and other community-based services such
as substance abuse treatment, housing, employment assistance. The goal of this transitional case management program is for ex-prisoners living with HIV in California
to live healthier lives in the community.
- Holla
Project Holla is a research collaborative between Centerforce and UCSF-CAPS.
The goal of the research is to explore the context of HIV risk behavior among men who have sex with men who do not identify as gay leaving prison with an aim of
designing an intervention based on these men's experiences that will address the unique HIV prevention needs of this population.
- Structural Eco-systems Therapy (Get SET)
Get SET is a research collaborative between Centerforce and UCSF-CAPS.
Through this project, we are comparing the effectiveness of two counseling interventions to reduce sexual and drug-related HIV transmission risk and increase HIV
related medical adherence. In this study, HIV+ men being released from prison will either receive a family counseling intervention or an individually focused
counseling comparison intervention. Findings will be used to further inform best practices to support individuals living with HIV to successfully transition back into
the community.
- Health Promotion
Health Promotion Project is a collaborative research project between Centerforce, UCSF-CAPS and UCSF-School of Nursing.
The research goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of two individual level interventions to reduce HIV risk behavior and improve access to post-release medical care
and HIV prevention services for men living with HIV leaving jail or prison settings. Findings will be used to further inform best practices to support individuals
living with HIV to successfully change risk behaviors and improve access to medical and social support services when transitioning back into the community.
Information Services
- Educational Materials
Brochures and Factsheets - Prison peer educators and other Centerforce staff create and facilitate the development of a variety of educational brochures,
fact sheets, and videos created by and for inmates and their families to address family and health-related topics and issues. Brochures and fact sheets include
Reuniting with Your Loved Ones, Connecting with Your Kids from Afar, Visiting a Relative in Jail or Prison, Resume Writing and Interviewing, getting your Diploma, Hepatitis C & HIV, Working with Community Services and more.
DVD's - "Inside/Out" is a 17-minute video with its accompanying comprehensive discussion guide exploring the challenges faced by women after their partners are
released from prison. "Inside/Out" focuses on the health risks in prison and highlights the need for honest communication around health issues when planning for
the future. "What Does He Do in There?" is an 18-minute video, originally designed for younger children, tracks a day in the life of a prisoner in San Quentin State
Prison in order to answer the typical questions posed by visiting children. The viewer takes a "virtual" tour of the prison, and visits various sites with inmate
comments along the way. Since the release of the video, significant interest has been generated in the "adult" community. The video is now widely used by probation
officers, teachers, and with adult audiences in general discussions of prisons and prison life. It remains a useful tool for all visiting programs.
- Annual Inside/Out Summit
Since 2000, the Centerforce Annual Inside/Out Summit has served as a forum for national discourse on best practices to support incarcerated populations and their families.
The Summit's dynamic keynote, plenary sessions, workshops, and roundtables provide an unparalleled opportunity for populations affected by incarceration to collectively seek positive solutions.
This truly unique event gives individuals a chance to discover, network and thrive with social support services and community based organization personnel, ex-prisoners, public health & healthcare professionals, prison reform advocates, government officials and corrections personnel from around the country.
- Replication of Effective Programs - Project START
Project START (START) was a multi-site HIV/STI/hepatitis prevention intervention trial that Centerforce participated in which provided evidence that a
comprehensive re-entry intervention based on case-management can reduce sexual risk behavior among young men leaving state prison compared to a standard risk
reduction intervention. Centerforce is the lead agency in a consortium to develop a standardized dissemination package and technical assistance guidance for the
START intervention that will be nationally distributed.
- Training and Consultation
Experienced Centerforce staff members are available to provide training and consultation services to community based agencies, organizations, academic
institutions, and government agencies on issues and topics such as working effectively with the prison community, program development and evaluation,
and policy analysis.
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