Toolkits

Visit CUNY's "Supports for Students with Conviction Records" webpage

On Wednesday October 27th CUNY launched the Supports for Students with Conviction Records webpage. The webpage is a project of the CUNY Justice Learning Collaborative, convened by the John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity.

November 7, 2021

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CUNY Justice Learning Collaborative

Download Two New Reentry Guides

The Education Justice Project has publishes two reentry guides, "Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry in Illinois" and "A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation".

October 29, 2021

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Education Justice Project

Read Cultivating Relationships and Building Support: A Guide to College-in-Prison Program Sustainability

This guide discusses how cultivating relationships with key stakeholders is critical for building a strong infrastructure for your program. Focusing on four categories of stakeholders, this guide is designed to help those new to the field to navigate and manage the different community members whose support is critical to the success and sustainability of college-in-prison programs. This guide is designed for anyone in the planning stages of their college-in-prison program or who have a program underway but are looking for ways to enhance or garnish more support for it.

October 1, 2021

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College-in-Prison Reentry Initiative

Read "Getting the Record Straight" (Report)

The insidious use of background checks in employment, licensure, housing, and education is yet another example of the perpetual punishment endured by millions of Americans who have conviction records. The user-friendly design of this guide is intended to help people with conviction records navigate individual, institutional, and systemic barriers erected by the practice of background checks. While many valuable guides exist that help people with convictions understand their legal rights, this guide is unique because it aims to help people develop their own narrative. This guide is a continuation of our work to support people with convictions in navigating barriers to education and economic opportunity. Last year, we released Getting to Work with a Criminal Record: New York State License Guides (2020 Expanded Edition), which explains the process for obtaining licenses in 25, high-demand occupations and professions for people with conviction records. We remain committed to increasing access to opportunity for the millions of people impacted by the criminal legal system.

January 26, 2021

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Protect Incarcerated People from COVID-19 — Toolkit by Mourning Our Losses

Mourning Our Losses is a crowd-sourced memorial to honor the lives of people who died in prisons, jails, and immigration detention facilities in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. We remember the lives of people who died from exposure to abominable public health conditions, as residents and as employees. Mourning Our Losses seeks to restore dignity to the faces and stories behind the statistics of death and illness from behind bars. We believe that a loss of any human life warrants mourning. We are united in our effort to honor our fallen brothers and sisters by telling their stories. We offer a platform for grief, healing, community, and reflection for all those touched by this preventable tragedy.

January 4, 2021

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Find a Program in the National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs

The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison maintains the most comprehensive resource in the United States for people seeking information about national college in prison programs. The National Directory was launched in 2020.

December 14, 2020

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Higher Education in Prison Landscape Project

Download Lessons from Second Chance Pell: A Toolkit for Helping Incarcerated Students Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education announced the Second Chance Pell (SCP) experiment under the Experimental Sites Initiative, which allows incarcerated students who would be eligible for Pell Grants—a form of federal financial aid—if they were not incarcerated to access them while attending an eligible academic program offered by one of the colleges participating in the experiment. But filing for financial aid while incarcerated can be a formidable challenge. Drawing on the experiences of the first group of SCP colleges, this toolkit, drafted in collaboration with the Chemeketa Community College, is designed to aid new and existing participants as they guide students through the complexities of filing for federal financial aid in prison, including completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA.

December 2, 2020

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Community News

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