Amity Foundation is doing a great job with implementation and management of their FY14 SCA Mentoring grant. They have achieved a great deal of integration among their diverse reentry services and have found creative solutions to the few barriers they have encountered. Amity is the only Mentoring grantee I know of that is pursuing an independent evaluation of their program.?Amity Foundation does a great job of integrating across all of their reentry services , including housing, employment, education, family reunification, etc. They also incorporate physical and mental wellbeing into almost every aspect of operations, including greening initiatives, gardening, yoga, smoking cessation, and nutrition. Staff model the healthy practices they teach and do not allow junk food on site. The majority of Amity's staff are also graduates of Amity programming.?Amity Foundation is proactive in regional and statewide advocacy through membership is groups such as LA Regional Reentry Partnership (LARRP) and Californians for Safety and Justice. These groups have been particularly active around Prop 47 in California (reducing some felonies to misdemeanors as a way to alleviate CA jail and prison overcrowding) and resulting legislation to strengthen or weaken it.?The few areas where Amity needs marginal improvement: 1) changes in the state prisons and the LA Sheriff's Office have restricted Amity's ability to do pre-release mentoring and to collect comprehensive recidivism data. They have found creative solutions to the lack of access to jail and prisons, including shadowing partners who do have green passes and using correspondence to introduce the mentor relationship pre-release. I will work with them on methods to access the recidivism data they will need for their evaluation. 2) sustainability: Amity staff expressed interest in reapplying for SCA mentoring grants and hope that the mentoring program will reach a critical mass where it becomes self-sustaining. I think they could be more strategic about how they pursue sustainability. 3) fidelity to EBP: all staff and mentors receiving training on evidence based practices such as CBT and MI, but follow-up is haphazard and they could use a better system to ensure fidelity.
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