Mentors try to help former prisoners turn their lives around

By Vic Ryckaert, IndyStar January 5, 2010

The First Day Out Initiative, offered through Mayor's Office of Ex-Offender Re-Entry, is aimed at helping ex-inmates forge a new path.

About 5,000 men and women return to Marion County from Indiana prisons each year. Many go back to their old habits, which can lead to trouble.

First Day Out is designed to change that. It began in January 2009 and already has 26 mentors working with released offenders.Many ex-inmates have been in penal institutions so long, they've lost touch with those on the outside, he noted. Many also have a history of broken relationships.

The mentors are trained in ways to befriend the ex-inmates. Using money from the program, mentors will buy them dinner on the day they get out.

They'll help the ex-inmates find housing and jobs. If the ex-inmates need transportation for work, the mentors will get them a bus pass; if they need to look good for a job interview, they'll pay for a haircut or buy them some decent clothing.

Sharon Jones, who is training to be a mentor, works as a project coordinator for a church-run program for newly released inmates. Called Rediscover You, it is from the Voice in the Wilderness Ministries, part of Promise Land Christian Community Church, 807 Edgemont Ave.

Voice in the Wilderness Ministries has helped 74 ex-inmates, and Jones is familiar with the needs of those getting out of prison: food, housing and identification.

A key difference in the First Day Out program is, "You get to meet them before they get out, and before they get connected with the elements that got them there in the first place."

The program hopes to match 50 ex-inmates with mentors by the end of the year. Program leaders realize that will represent only a small fraction of those returning from prison.

excerpted from IndyStar.com