Update!

Hey everyone! It has been a couple of weeks since our Resume Your Life!:  A Literacy Program for the Incarcerated has ended. We have learned that now all of our inmates have gotten jobs. To show our appreciation for our staff and volunteers, we will be holding a pasta dinner for everyone on Saturday, October 27, 2012 at the Waterfront Hotel. The dinner will start at 5:00 pm and end at 8:00 pm. So come enjoy good food and have a good time!

English 304 Community Education is a new organization, so we are trying to expand. The success of Resume Your Life!:  A Literacy Program at FCI Morgantown has motivated us to continue at other federal correction centers. We are now in the process of working out a schedule with FCI Beckley in Beaver, WV. If you live around this area and are interested please email us to acquire extra information.

Our education program is also working with juveniles who dropped out of school. We are making efforts to get their GED and then eventually apply to a community college.

English 304 Community Education is always looking for new ideas in helping the community and new volunteers! We will keep you posted about future projects! Again thank you everyone who has supported our cause! 

End of the Road

Our program has come to a bittersweet end.  We are sad to leave FCI Morgantown, the participants, and staff there.   All of the volunteers and staff here at English 304 Community Education have created many lasting relationships that will flourish for years to come.  We are very excited to say that our program has been successful here!

More than 50% of our inmates have gotten jobs after completing our program.  They are very excited to begin this new adventure in life and are thankful for all of our support and compassion.  A few of the participants wanted to let all of our readers, volunteers, and donators know that they appreciate everything you have done to further their education and help them make a step towards a better life.

The Resume Your Life!:  A Literacy Program for the Incarcerated has been such a success, FCI Morgantown's warden, Captain Kragen, has asked that we do the program every year!  We already have many willing participants that want to change their lives and learn new skills that lead to decreased recidivism.  Again, thank you readers for your support and please stay tuned for more information on our newer programs.

Kelsey

Hudson Link: an educational organization just like us!

Hey guys!!!

We aren't the only one trying to save the world one literacy program at a time.  Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison provides college education, life skills, and re-entry support for the incarcerated in New York.  This program has resulted in lower rates of recidivism, incarceration, and poverty!

Hudson Link has many different programs at many different correctional facilities.  They are also supported by colleges all around New York.  Hudson Link has made a huge impact on English 304 Community Education and how we can succeed.

If you want to check out more about Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison please visit website, http://www.hudsonlink.org/.  Once you're there, you can donate, read their blog, and get up to date on some other news and events they have.  Thanks for reading!!

Kelsey

Mock Fair and Other Exciting News!

Hey Everyone!

Thank you so much for all of your input and your support.  We wouldn't have been able to do any of this without all of you standing behind us!  The mock job fair and interviews are coming up soon, and all of our participants are really excited to see how they do.

Our participants will be using the skills they gained throughout the course to attain a "job" at the mock fair.  All of the volunteers that have stayed after classes and helped tutor the students, thank you!  There has been an increased performance on their resumes and cover letters.  They all are gaining the the correct skills to be successful after incarceration.

Those of you that have been keeping up to date with our blog know that the FCI Morgantown job fair is on September 20.  Those local businesses that will be participating will also be required to complete a quick survey about each participant they interview.  This will be used to assess the effectiveness of our class and to also understand things we need to change.

We are always open to suggestions and we are still accepting businesses for the mock job fair.  If you are interested in helping and participating in the job fair please call our program director, Allen Utterback, at 304-536-227 for more details.  The more businesses we have, the more our participants can practice and become confident in their skills.

Kelsey

Smooth Sailing

Hey guys! Thanks for checking back on our blog. I am pleased to inform you that the program is running smoothly.  The course schedule was structured into four units for six weeks.

In the beginning there were a few bumps in the road. Some of the inmates acted disorderly and did not want to listen to Mr. Riebold, the professor of the class. A couple of the inmates did not want to take the program seriously and would not do their work. They were disrespecting Mr. Riebold and throwing trash around the room.

Because Mr. Riebold cares that these inmates are eligible to have a good future he had to intervene. He showed the students various videos on the Internet to show them the facts about recidivism, hoping to get through to them.

Another video was shown was shown to grab their attention. The video shows a how inmates in Haiti learned how to read and write better to then each other inmates. The videos were an eye opener for the students. The came in to the next class and sat down without any disruption.

We started off with a basic grammar and spelling lesson.  Some of the students struggled because they haven’t had any schooling in so long.  We gave them quizzes to practice their skills to see what they needed to work on. The lesson frustrated some of the students, but with the help of our generous volunteers, they were able to get one on –one- help.

Having volunteers make such a difference due to the time constraints we have on the class. Class only lasts for fifty minutes each day at 9:00 am and 10:00 on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. We also have classes Tuesday/Thursdays from 9:00 to 10:15 and 10:30 to 11:45. We are almost half way through the program, but we are always looking for more volunteers. Any help can make a huge difference in the future of one of our students.

At First, the students struggled to brainstorm good qualifications that possessed. However, our volunteers worked with them by giving them examples and make them see that just because they were in jail that they aren’t a good person. Once we broke through those struggles, they were eager to continue working on the cover letter and résumés.

All in the entire program couldn’t be going better. The students have connected with our volunteers. Even some of you guys have offered to help them find jobs after they are release.

If you would like to get involved shoot us an email or give us a call at (304) 536-2271

How we got started

Thanks for visiting our blog for Resume Your Life!:  A Literacy Program for the Incarcerated. If you are familiar with our program you know that a lot of time and effort went into planning everything from the budget to the schedule. To get our grant funded we really needed to plan out everything logically. We only had a budget set at $5,000. All of you guys have been really supportive like offering to donate us coffee and other snacks for the employees and other volunteers.

When considering what materials we needed we searched the web for general ideas. Since there are twelve students in each class it was obvious we needed twelve computers. Since the computers were only needed for typing the résumés we did not need anything extravagant. Therefore we chose the Dell Inspiron 14RI14RN-1364DBK 14in Notebook Computer. Each computer was just under $500. Dell also gave us a deal, giving us Microsoft word for free on each computer.

We chose Writing That Works: Communicating Effectively on the Job as the text from reading good reviews. The book enabled the inmates to be able to read and work at their own pace during class. The examples really helped them get started without overwhelming them.

We purchased a printer so that we can write and give written feedback to everyone.  We also purchased software called Winway Deluxe Resume. The software has various templates and tips on how to make a successful resume. We used the software a little bit just to see if it would give them extra help. It seemed a little bit complicated to use and ineffective. In the future, we will not use this software.  The more volunteers we have the better so that everyone gets a more interactive education, instead of relying on technology.

After all of our main buys, we had a little over $300 dollars left for various materials such as pens, pencils, computer paper, notebook paper, and highlighters. As of now we have enough supplies, but donations are always appreciated!

 

Thank you all for staying up to date with our program!  The program is going great at FCI Morgantown and the participants are making a lot of progress.  We have produced a lot of work on researching companies and did first drafts of participant resumes.  The resumes were very bad in organization and highlighting their qualifications.  The participants at FCI Morgantown have gotten so much from our program in the first week and will continue to grow and learn.  When the participants are ready to leave, they will be armed with the knowledge to become productive members of society. 

  

If you would like to find out more about our program, we can be reached by the following ways.

• English304CommunityEducation.com/Resumeyourlife
• Phone (304) 536-2271

Allen Utterback

Measuring Our Project Outcomes

Hey everyone!


As we are nearing the start of our program, I believe this is a good time to discuss how we plan to evaluate the project.  We're not going to run this class and just sit around hoping that it helped our students in some way.  We will be doing our best to scientifically measure the outcomes of our program, so that the results can be used to improve all future efforts to help the incarcerated.

Our plans for measuring the success of our project are two-fold.  First of all, the program participants will be required to take part in the mock job fair held in the fall by Morgantown Federal Correctional Institution (FCI).  We will give the mock interviewers surveys to score each inmate on the strength of the inmate's employment documents and interview skills.  Once we gather all the results of these surveys, the scores of Resume Your Life participants will be compared to those of the remaining inmates.  Hopefully they will have done significantly better!

Furthermore, after each program participant is released from prison, we plan to contact their parole officers periodically to see how each program graduate is doing out in the real world, particularly concerning employment and crime involvement.  We hope to be able to check on each program graduate once every six months.  We will be comparing their life situations with those of the other inmates released from Morgantown FCI.  This is where things truly matter so hopefully we will have some great results!


I won't bore everyone by getting into more scientific detail than I have already.  If that is what you want, though, you can go to our website and check out the project outcomes paper that we have posted.  As always, I invite everyone to share their thoughts about all this in the comments below.


Just as a reminder, our program is indeed starting soon and we are still looking for any volunteers to help us set up, handle paperwork, and/or help with tutoring.  To volunteer or donate, contact us through our site or by phone at (304) 536-2271.


Exciting times coming up!

Thank you all for your support in our program, Resume Your Life.  The goals of our program are to reduce recidivism in the prison system and cause lasting changes to better our community.  The lasting changes will put extra money into better schools, roads, and health care system.  The participants will learn to write cover letters, resumes, and job interview skills.  The equipment needed for the project wasn’t much.  There are six laptops, a portable printer, and printer paper.  The participants will conduct research on the current workforce.  At the end of the class, they will have a polished resume and skills to get an honest job.  The grant that we received from the Human Fund covered the cost of everything and we ready to begin our classes.  Our program at FCI Morgantown will have a great impact on our community!  These skills will help them obtain good and dependable jobs to deter them from a life of crime.  Our classes will begin August 6th and end at September 14th at the Federal Correctional Institute Morgantown.  The final is a mock job fair on September 20th, in which the participants will display the skills they have learned.

Tomorrow, we have our first class of the Resume Your Life program!  We have reviewed our participants’ records and have a plan for each.  The research they will conduct on how to put together a resume will help them be prepared for job interviews.  Our team has reviewed the computer programs, how to operate the equipment, and are ready to train the participants.  The program will give them the opportunity to secure honest jobs upon their release from Federal Correctional Institute Morgantown.  The English 304 Community Education program will be a beacon to the participants’ to regain control of their lives! 

You can contact us for the Resume Your Life program to volunteer or donate the following ways.

•  English304CommunityEducation.com/Resumeyourlife
• Phone (304) 536-2271

Allen Utterback

The Human Fund!

George Costanza, philanthropist.
We owe him big time.

Before we get any further, I really wanted to tell you guys more about the organization that is making our project possible: The Human Fund!  This is a truly noble organization that has helped many groups such as ours find the money to jump-start their charity and service ideas.  The founder, George Costanza, is a visionary who has worked with countless different people to improve lives everywhere.

A simple slogan.  An effective vision.

Here is a link to a video about the history of the Human Fund.  I strongly encourage everyone to view it and to check out their  website, www.the-human-fund.org, where you can find more info on all the good work they have been doing over the years.


Even if you haven't found any way to help us, you might find that you can help out at the Human Fund, as they are much broader in scope and need a much greater variety of volunteers.  So really, stop reading this blog and check them out right now!


The Human Fund.  Money for people.

Some Details for Our Project

Hey guys!


We've actually been getting a lot of questions about the details of our program.  I really want to thank everyone for all the interest in our project!  Allen already provided a general overview of what we are doing, so I just wanted to give you some specifics:

• We are planning to run four classes total, with six students per class
• Inmates within three to six months from being released will be given priority to join the class
• Two classes will meet Mon/Wed/Fri for 50 minutes each, from 9-9:50 AM and 10-10:50 AM
• Two classes will meet on Tues/Thurs for 75 minutes each, from 9-10:15 AM and 10:30-11:45 AM
• Classes are tentatively scheduled to start on August 1st and end on September 15th

We are trying to schedule the classes to conclude with the mock job fair held in the fall by Morgantown Federal Correctional Institution (FCI).  This is so that the fair can be used both as immediate practice for the program participants, as well as part of the evaluation of our program's effectiveness.

I know you guys wanted information on the actual content of the classes, so I put together a rough outline of what the class schedule will look like as well:


Week 1: Orientation, equipment training, general overview of grammar and mechanics
Week 2: Cover letter writing, job-search strategies
Week 3: Learning the resume format, brainstorming effective content
Week 4: Constructing the different resume sections, peer reviews
Week 5: Polishing final copies of employment documents
Week 6: Further revising and interview skills


You can go to our website to get more information on the project.  As we continue to work things out, we should have a detailed class syllabus posted on the site soon.  I invite everyone to comment below on what you guys think of our plans so far.  We are always looking for ideas!

We researched five rehabilitation programs to obtain the do’s and don’ts of recidivism programs.  Some programs taught us the importance of counseling for employment, substance abuse, and education.  Other programs have shown us the problems with poor planning and lack of reinforcement within the programs.  As well as seeing what kind program we needed to make, we found that the problem is bigger than we had thought.  Just in FCI Morgantown alone, there are 200,000 inmates!  The cost for the prison for one year is $4,763,250,000, and that’s a lot of money!  All of that money is taken away from schools, roads, and other programs to benefit society.

The participants’ of the program are training up on the workforce.  Like the Positive Action program where we learned about narrowing their focus and mindset on their tasks.  The Positive Action program had to change their participant’s mindset of being lowlifes into good people in society.  Our program is giving the participants tools to get jobs to become productive members of their society.  The Preventing Parolee Crime Program had to help participants change their entire lives.  The ComALERT program was similar in their target audience.  To change people from uneducated, drug addicted bums into productive members of society took a great plan and a lot of work.  Any and all rehabilitation programs will take hard work and a controlled mindset to be productive.  The Resume Your Life program was well researched from other programs.  A good plan on how to slow down recidivism was devised.  Our program will benefit society with rehabilitated participants into upstanding citizens.  That will save the money from the prison system and put into other great projects.

 If you would like to find out more about our program, we can be reached by the following ways.

• English304CommunityEducation.com/Resumeyourlife
• Phone (304) 536-2271

Allen Utterback

Hey ya'll,

Welcome to our newest blog!!  If you're just joining us in our cause to increase the use of educational learning programs, we are English 304 Community Education.  We are a non-profit organization and this is our blog for the newest project on our list.  Resume Your Life!:  A Literacy Program for the Incarcerated, is specifically designed to help individuals learn new writing and job skills.  We have decided to introduce Resume Your Life! at Federal Corrections Institute (FCI) in Morgantown, WV this coming fall!

To get everything chugging right along for our project, we've already completed the following:

• Submitted a grant proposal to the Human Fund.
• Begun work on the schedule of classes and budget for the program.
• Hand picked 24 participants incarcerated at FCI Morgantown.

We are always looking for volunteers to help with paperwork, e-mails, and special tutoring.  If you're a local business and would like to help with the FCI Morgantown mock job fair please contact our director, Olivia Benson, at 304-293-9485. 

Thanks for reading!!!  Stay tuned for future information about Resume Your Life!

Kelsey