Prison to Parole Case Planning, Identifying and addressing success barriers, Vital document acquisition, State and Federal benefits acquisition, Case management, Coaching, Mentoring, Connections with community support groups, housing assistance, transportation assistance, food and clothing assistance, Employment assistance.
Helpful community links:
CCJRC Go Guides-Getting On After Getting Out
Colorado Voters with Convictions FAQs
Employment and Training Navigators (ETN) specialize in working with parolees to enhance job readiness by encouraging long term employment goals with sustainable wages through case management, soft skills classes, and funding for job training. The ETNs collaborate with workforce centers, technical schools, community colleges, and other vocational schools throughout the state in order to identify certificate and job training opportunities. ETNs seek and establish relationships with employers who are willing to hire parolees in order to expand the pool of potential job opportunities for offenders. Additionally, ETNs work with local businesses and community organizations to promote workforce development projects, internships, and apprenticeship programs.
Community Re-Entry partners with community agencies throughout the state who provide additional supportive services for individuals on parole. Services include housing, meals, clothing, transportation, assistance obtaining state IDs and vital documents, and locating ongoing community support.
- Shelters: Re-Entry partners with shelters throughout the state to secure rental beds and foot lockers at participating shelters. At these locations, Re-Entry is able to reserve and pay for beds for clients in need of short term housing.
- Transitional Houses: These houses can house multiple parolees and are available for short and long term stays. These houses generally do not have any long term lease commitment and the rent is paid on a week to week basis. Re-Entry is able to fund rent in the short term at these houses until parolees are able to self pay. Residents are required to follow house rules set by the landlord/house manager.
- Sober Living Homes: Similar to transitional houses, Sober Living Homes also house multiple parolees and are available for short and long term stays, with no lease and week to week rental commitment. These homes have a programming element associated with them and residents are required to attend a set amount of AA/NA group classes either in house or in the community. Sobriety is required to live at these homes. Re-Entry is also able to short term fund a parolees rent at these houses until they are able to self pay.
- Felon Friendly Landlords: Community Re-Entry has relationships with several felon-friendly apartment landlords throughout the state. Community Reentry Specialists are able to make referrals and connect parolees and families to these landlords for potential placement. Re-Entry is generally unable to fund parolees rent at these locations.
- Program Beds: Community Re-Entry partners with several local organizations that provide structured, supportive housing programs to individuals in the community as well as those on parole. These programs generally work on a level system and as individuals complete their levels, they are allowed more and more freedoms away from the program until the program is completed and they are ready to transition into the community. These programs have a set amount of time that the resident is required to stay. Some of these programs are faith-based and require the resident to to participate in some form of treatment within the program. These programs do not generally require residents to pay rent.
- Supportive Housing Voucher Programs: Community Re-Entry partners with community agencies that offer long term supportive housing programs for qualifying individuals on parole. Parolees must meet several criteria in order to be eligible for one of these programs such as having a history of chronic homelessness.
- Meals and Food Banks: Community Re-Entry partners with several local area food banks to provide individuals on parole hot meals as well as food boxes of non-perishable items. Community Re-Entry is able to provide referrals to local Human Services agencies to assist parolees with obtaining their financial benefits such as EBT cards, Old Age Pension, and Social Security income. Re-Entry specialists, along with local community agencies, can assist clients with the process of enrolling for these benefits.
- Clothing and Hygiene: Community Re-Entry has established relationships with local organizations that can provide clothing and hygiene items for individuals on parole. These include casual clothing items, job interview clothing, as well as work clothes and work boots. Re-Entry has the ability to fund parolees at local stores to obtain employment specific, work related clothing, including work tools. Re-Entry also has relationships with local thrift stores and is able to provide parolees discounted gift cards.
- Transportation: Community Re-Entry purchases public transportation bus tickets for individuals on parole. The amount of transportation assistance that an individual receives from Re-Entry is based on funding availability, individual parolee financial situations, as well as a parolee's commitment and progress toward becoming self-sustaining. Re-Entry is also able to refer individuals to community organizations that can provide transportation assistance at a discounted rate.
- Identification Assistance: Re-Entry has relationships with several community organizations that can assist individuals on parole with obtaining their vital documents. Staff at these organizations will work closely and provide guidance to individuals on the process of obtaining these documents from state and federal agencies. Several of these organizations will fund the associated costs.
- Community Support Groups: Re-Entry has working relationships with several organizations throughout the state that provide community support groups and classes. Parolees can be provided a referral from Re-Entry to some programs such as: Fatherhood Programs, Motherhood Programs, Family Reunification, AA/NA, Sobriety-based gyms and cognitive-based group classes in the community. These programs and classes are generally free of charge.
Community Re-Entry Specialists (CRES) provide integrated case management and support services throughout the state to assist with removing barriers that interfere with an offender’s successful transition from prison to the community. Re-Entry services may include, but are not limited to, stabilization assistance or resources for housing, transportation, clothing, personal hygiene, backpacks, work tools, employment training, and job placement. The services are based on individual need and are incentive-based, requiring the offender’s participation and accountability. CRES use cognitive-based interventions when interacting with the offenders to enhance motivation and reinforce positive behavior, deliver risk reduction, encourage stabilization efforts, support family reintegration, and assist with employment and job training opportunities. CRES also conduct an initial assessment to determine the appropriate level of re-entry transition assistance that may be needed for successful reintegration into the community.
Community Care Case Managers (CCCM) assist with social services benefit program navigation and access, pre-release transition planning and tracking, and assisting with long term care enrollment. CCCMs are involved in community outreach to develop new partnerships to increase, improve, and/or refine service delivery to complex needs individuals. This team also participates in special projects as needed or assigned in a continual effort to improve service delivery. CCCM responsibilities include:
Long-Term Care placement assistance: Assist in identifying LTC candidates either prior to release or under supervision by Parole; providing application support, locate and complete referrals to appropriate level care including home healthcare, assisted living, skilled nursing, group homes, and hospice; serve as liaison between DOC facility or community staff and care providers; work to facilitate sustainable placements by providing short term intensive case management to individuals placed and supporting care providers.
Community Outreach: Attend community meetings and travel to network with outside resource and service providers, locate new resources across the state, identify ways to improve or refine service delivery to complex needs individuals, collaborate with other government agency partners, and share information specific to working with the justice involved.
Social Services Benefit Program Access: Maintain specialized eligibility knowledge for federal, state and local social services programs. Increase access to programs for target population to include providing advocacy, acting as authorized representatives, completing required forms, navigating eligibility determinations, interpreting notices of decision, and maintaining communication with staff and the applicants throughout the process. Sharing program knowledge by providing benefits education workshops to offenders, consulting with other staff on complex cases during multi-disciplinary meetings, and recommending policy or process changes to leverage benefits as a re-entry resource.
Pre-Release Transition Planning and Tracking: Begin tracking upcoming releases with offenders having moderate to severe medical, mental health, or intellectual/developmental disability needs up to 180 days before they return to the community. Recommend specialized resources in proximity to release area, identify care needs for chronic conditions; connect offenders with Medicaid care coordination, durable medical equipment, or other specialized services such as brain injury resources. Act as a liaison when needed to increase collaboration between facility, headquarters, parole, clinical services, and re-entry staff. Upon release meet with offenders to help them in identifying health related goals, developing an action plan to address barriers related to their personal health or impairments, and support the offender in accessing care.
The Department of Corrections Office of Clinical and Correctional Services provides the Parole Division with four Parole Mental Health Clinicians and one Supervisor. These clinicians are assigned to Parole offices throughout the state by geographic region, and are tasked with identifying specific, persistently mentally ill and dual diagnosed offenders pending release from prison to Parole supervision. The Parole Mental Health Clinicians work collaboratively with Facility Clinicians, Case Managers, Facility Parole Officers, and offenders to create transition plans and address the wide range of behavioral health needs for their assigned groups. They also work in conjunction with Community Mental Health Agencies and Parole approved treatment providers to help ensure that identified parolees receive appropriate and adequate services while on Parole. Additionally, Parole Mental Health Clinicians provide crisis intervention services, complete risk assessments, initiate mental health holds, and help ensure that offenders receive emergency psychiatric services if needed. These clinicians serve a small, targeted group of pending releases and active parolees, therefore, most offenders releasing to Parole and in need of treatment referrals and/or connection(s) will be assisted by other Parole staff known as Treatment Coordination Case Managers.
The Treatment Coordination Case Managers (TCCM) are staff within the Client Choice Treatment Provider Program in the Division of Adult Parole. As part of the transition from the former TASC contract, the Division reallocated these positions to take on the important work of continuity of care between facility to community for releasing individuals needing treatment services.
The goal of this unit is to ensure releasing individuals who have psychological (>P3), substance abuse (>SA3), or offense-specific (S5) treatment needs (>P3, >SA3, or SO5) are referred to a treatment provider for assessment/ intake within 14 days of their release to the community and post release at the parole officers request. The referrals include coordination with facility case managers to identify client choice in treatment agency, providers in the community, and the various Regional Accountability Entities (RAE’s) for those who are Medicaid eligible. They also may include coordination with the Parole MH Clinicians either pre or post release for those HRHNDO or higher risk/ need individuals. They are responsible for identifying and working with various providers in the community to expand and align our provider network with that of Medicaid, maintaining our Provider Handbook, and Provider Directory. If you are a provider that is in need of more consistent referrals and interested in joining this new and exciting transition, please contact the ATP Coordinator for more information. We strongly encourage providers that are dual billable to ensure continuity of care in cases where the parolee flow between billing sources or discharges their sentence and can no longer be funded by CDOC.
As we look to continue to expand the role of these positions, they will have access to treatment notes/ progress summaries/ ROI’s in eOMIS and will create referral packets with ROI’s for providers and RAE’s. They will also have PEAK Pro Access for existing parolees to check eligibility and benefit status. They will become more involved in the referral process for residential treatment programs, both our traditional IRT/STIRT/RDDT and the new Medicaid wavier for residential treatment. And last, but not least will be assisting with Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) MAT service coordination from facility to community and when needs are identified in the community.
In the short time this unit has been staffed, they have worked hard to meet the objectives of our Departments 2020/2021 WIG #2 Strategy: Increase (to 80%) the number of eligible inmates referred to post-release substance abuse services prior to release. As of February 1st, 2021 they have referred 72% annualized (June-December) and were at 85% for October, 96% for November, 85% for December, and 92% for January. Their work is directly contributing to the increase in overall engagement numbers for the Regional Accountability Entities (RAE’s) and releasing individuals access to care.
Regional Accountability Entities (RAE’s) map
Continuity of Care Referral and Treatment Coordination Framework