There are a number of jails and 2 Federal prisons in a 10 county service area of the North Eastern part of Kentucky. In one prison alone, an average of 300 people per year exit the system to begin to return society. These individuals, have often not had the opportunity to learn basic fundamental life skills that Family and Consumer Sciences routinely teach. It was the commitment of the FCS agents in this region to reach out to this particular audience to extend some of the information to them. This group is referred to as the “Re-Entry Program”. We believe they can benefit from this knowledge in a time that they have an opportunity to absorb it right before they re-enter into society.

The team of 9 Family and Consumer Sciences agents met and selected 11 life skill topics to write on and two prisons to deliver them to. These were located on either end of the District and designed to launch the effort that can later be extended to numerous audiences.

On the South End of the area, 1,288 were offered the newsletters, as well as 1,100 on the other end of the area. Eleven different newsletters were sent 11 consecutive months to the south end and at least four times to the North end. Newsletters were also sent to Recovery Works and Journey House Recovery Center in or around Greenup County. Recovery Works typically has 32 in house and Journey House has 6-8 participants. These sites were sent six in different mailings. This means that a maximum of 2,428 were reached during the first year of effort with 6-11 issues of the newsletters.

The topics covered were: Having a Positive Attitude (from the series Keys to Embracing Aging), MyPlate, Your Credit Health and You, Dealing With Conflict, Family Vitality, the Mind Body Connection, Men and Depression ( From the Series Blue to you), Preparing for an Interview, Time Management, the Value of Laughter, Managing Stress, and Choosing the Simply Beautiful Life.

While the evaluations are still being distributed and collected, the coordinators of the program at the prison has given us some feedback. “The inmates that I have spoken to regarding the newsletters enjoy them.  They think they are very beneficial and interesting.  The newsletters provide them with information to make better, healthier life choices”, USP (United State Penitentiary) Big Sandy Education Specialist.  More details are being gathered via the evaluation we created, but eleven volunteers shared the following: Ten agreed or strongly agreed the information presented in the newsletters was relevant to them, all eleven indicated the information was useful to them. All Eleven understood the information. Five enjoyed the newsletters, 5 strongly enjoyed the newsletters and one did not enjoy them (but stated he planned to use the information anyway). All eleven stated they learned something new from each of the newsletters, all eleven intend to apply some of the information they learned, and all eleven think they can use the information to improve their health and wellness.

Other topics they want to see covered in the future are: healthy family relationships, how to repair misunderstanding in communication, institutional adjustments with regards to re-entry adjustments and safety of each individuals maintaining a productive role, prison reform, recidivism, education opportunities, re-entry opportunities, same lines different variation specifics, and legal material. 

The University of Kentucky was acknowledged in each newsletter, although agent’s names were not included. Each newsletter was written by a different Extension FCS Agent, (some wrote more than one). Each was based on a subject in another existing FCS publication written by state staff, with the intention of being able to deliver more information on the topic if needed, requested or if delivered face to face. After further examination, the FCS agent intend to continue to develop more newsletters (volumes and issues-One volume of 12 issues per year), with the additional intent to also expand the audiences to include all the local jails as well. Some have requested them for other groups too, given that they are relevant for anyone picking up the pieces and starting again. 

The Johnson County FCS agent delivered the topic on Time Management to one group of 30 inmates, face to face. Verbal feedback from prison leadership indicated it was very well received with all participants completing the workbook that accompanied the program.