NASW Social Work Talks - EP 126: Established and Emerging Practices in Public Defender Social Work

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

In NASW's latest episode of Social Work Talks, sponsored by Illinois Department of DCFS, we converse with the Maryland Office of Public Defenders about their Office of Reentry Services. With the help of social workers on staff, it focuses on helping incarcerated individuals re-enter society—and provides them with resources so they can get a fresh start in becoming productive members of their communities. This is thanks to the help of the Second Chance Act. Tune in, learn, and share.

Today's episode of Social Work Talks is brought to you by Illinois DCFS. Hello, my name is Mel Wilson, Senior Policy Advisor for the National Association of Social Workers. I'm the lead person on issues related to criminal justice. In that role, for many years, I've focused on the need for reentry policies and services for men and women returning to the communities after a period of incarceration. Since 2006, reentry services have been partially funded by the federal legislation called the Second Chance Act. The reentry model has proven to be successful in re-establishing returning citizens as productive members of their communities and reducing recidivism. I'm happy to welcome key staff from the Maryland Office of Public Defenders,

which, among other things, coordinate the Office of Reentry Services. So let me introduce to you Melissa Rothstein and Janie Schreiber. I know I'm not pronouncing that right, Janie, but Janie Schreiber. And they're going to give you an overview and an explanation of what their program is. After that, we'll go through a series of questions and answers and dialogue about the importance of their services and where NASW and social workers really fit in supporting these types of services. So I'll start with Melissa. I'll turn it over to you.

A little overview would be great. And after you guys finish, I'll start the question and answers. Great. Thanks. Well, I'm Melissa Rothstein. I'm the Chief of External Affairs at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. And in my role there, one of my key tasks is that I oversee our grants work, and I try to leverage resources that can help expand our practice.

And a huge part of that work is securing funding for us to have additional social workers and peer recovery specialists than what our state grant provides for. While we are a state agency that covers the costs of attorneys for litigation, it doesn't generally sufficiently recognize all of the other experts that are needed to really both enhance the quality of our representation and to provide our clients with the services that they need. And so through grants, including some funding through the Second Chance Act, we've been able to increase our social work division by about a third with outside funding and have a peer support unit. Actually, one of our permanent staff social workers is

Joni Shreve, who is in our post-conviction division. So I'll let her introduce herself. Sure. Yes. I'm happy to be with you. My name is Joni Shreve. I'm a social worker in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in our post-conviction division. And I've been fortunate to be a permanent staff member for the last 12 years. And my focus has really been on providing services to people who are incarcerated and represented by our post-conviction division. A lot of times that means trying to advocate for a reduction of sentence, going back into court for a modification, and hopefully advocating through re-entry planning that this person is ready to be released into

the community with support available. Our social work division is very broad. It gives us a lot of flexibility to fit into a lot of different types of work that our office conducts. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender is a very large state agency and we cover the entire state so we represent youth and adults who are involved in the criminal legal system or in other areas such as in child welfare we represent parents we represent people who are involuntarily committed to state hospitals and so we have a wide variety of services and based on the mission and values of our agency social work fits very nicely into that. I think that we offer a lot on multidisciplinary teams to try to cover and

explore a lot of different areas of our clients' lives, and our client really is at the center of that representation, and social work fits very nicely into that model. Thank you, Jeremy. Before we get into the questions, Melissa, I would like to ask you in terms of the Second Chance Act. This is really an important piece of legislation, and many folks may not know, but NESW was involved in the very beginning and helping to advocate for passage of that over time, as I mentioned, it's been pretty successful. Could you talk a little bit about Second Chance and how that funding is important and that fact that it is up for reauthorization and we are all working, trying to get it reauthorized for another number of years. So could you talk a little bit about that?

Sure. Yeah. So it is, as you mentioned, the Second Chance Act is, I mean, it's pretty vital to just sort of encouraging successful reentry. It is, you know, literally for giving somebody a second chance after they have served their time. There are several different avenues of funding through Second Chance, so it really tries to target the full range of reentry services. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, we're fortunate to have two Second Chance Act grants currently. One is with the Bureau of Justice Assistance in their community crisis response and community stabilization. And that those funds for us focus on our adult clients who are being released and return home. We actually, through that grant, primarily

focus on people who are still in the pre-trials, who are still pre-trial. And so they can, so that they, you know, they've already spent a short amount of time in jail, but to get them home and sort of back into a more kind of productive lifestyle as soon as possible. And having that sort of facilitated with their, um, with, with the, with what's happening on their case. Um, we also, and, and through that project, we have, um, we have a social worker and, um, and two peer recovery specialists. Um, so the social worker primarily really focuses on, on kind of clinical issues that somebody might have, um, that, that have either, you know, sometimes they've never been addressed before. Sometimes they've been addressed inadequately,

or sometimes maybe there was a time where, where like the person knows their diagnosis, they had received services, but there's been, but there's been a break in time. So they're doing a lot of the, the sort of backwards looking of what the person's history is and what they need and, and sort of the clinical components of moving forward. And then we have the peer recovery specialists who, particularly for clients involved in this work who have a substance use disorder, are people who have that lived experience and they can provide the support and sort of help facilitate some warm handoffs and some follow-up in case management afterwards. We also have a second grant through the Second Chance Act that focuses on children in the

justice system through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. And that grant is pretty similar. It has, for us, a social worker and then a youth reentry specialist, so somebody who's an adult now, but they have some lived experience in the, or actually we're going to have two people who've had lived experience in the juvenile system, so that, again, really focusing on getting kids out of state custody. In our state, it's the Department of Juvenile Services, so getting people out of DJS custody and back at home, back in school, back to sort of having the resources and services that they need so that they can kind of have, you know, continue their, you know, kind of progress and develop into healthy adults. Yeah, that's interesting.

That's the first I've heard of the juvenile piece of it. And I'm assuming you're working in that context then with the parent or guardian. And many of them may have been in foster care or are in foster care. Is that? Yes. I mean, sometimes we are. I mean, because we are part of the team that's representing the child, we are focused on the child. And we work with their parents or their guardian when, you know, when that is

appropriate. Unfortunately, some of the children who we represent, and I would say probably part of why they're in the juvenile system, is that they don't always have parents who engage or are supportive. And so, you know, a lot of the work is also in that context. And I don't know the numbers offhand. I would imagine that many of that, in terms of your point, that many of them probably do have experience in the foster care system, when we're first working with them, they're in state custody. And so some of it is then, you know, kind of seeing like, okay, what is it going to mean when they're no longer in the state's custody? You know, do they have family they're going to reunify with? Or, you know, is it a foster care situation?

Yeah, that's a very important service. Joni, which touches on something in terms of So how individuals become identified as, how do you outreach to them? The number of facilities that exist, of course, folks have timing for they're going to be released. But what is that initial identifying who is, and I'll use the word eligible, and that may not be an operative term, but who's eligible for reentry services? Sure. So the social workers in our division, in our agency receive referrals directly from

our attorneys who are actively working with opd clients and so our agency does a lot of outreach obviously to educate people about the public defender services who can be eligible how to apply for an attorney and once they are in our agency and represented by an attorney we can accept referrals from those attorneys for a range of services this may be you know doing those in-depth biopsychosocial assessments providing a mitigation investigation to help with sentencing or if we're at the phase where we are putting together a re-entry phase any of our opd clients can receive those services so we receive those referrals directly from attorneys as they're actively representing our clients on our grant programs there's i think a little bit

of a different referral process to identify specific clients who are eligible for those grant services and so melissa may have more to add to that but for social work services any opd client is eligible for our support, and that could include re-entry planning. Melissa, do you want to say anything on that? Sure, yeah. And our grants, and particularly our Second Chance Act grants, do have sort of a particularly defined populations. And so what we typically do is sort of identify them from the referrals that come from the

attorneys, because that really is like the primary kind of point of contact and kind of the initial touchpoint for our agency. sometimes depending on what like kind of how that process works in different jurisdictions across the state sometimes it can be a little more proactive on our grants because we do have these additional services that are focused on specific populations we we can sometimes sort of have somebody who who may join the attorney at um you know at their initial conversation with a client at a bail review or or review kind of the list of new juvenile clients that we have in a certain jurisdiction so that we can really make sure to to reach um really as many of our clients

as possible who are appropriate answer the question this is pre-trial do you do pre-trial or is this this is uh through the courts once once that that case is being presented to the court uh or pre-sentencing maybe that's the word i'm looking i'm looking for yeah i mean i would say like, I mean, we, we provide services to our clients throughout the entire, the entire process of their representation. So on our grants that focus on sort of pre-trial, it might be, you know, that, that is sort of from the time of somebody's bail review through the time of their sentence and possibly a little beyond where like where Joni works and, um, and, and sort of other places where, you know, it'll sort of be from the time that the person is sort of first involved in

whatever their legal review is and so they have an attorney through when that legal case is resolved and johnny at that again relates to i think something that you would be doing you mentioned about psychosocial assessments but that whole assessment process uh and understanding what the needs especially the needs assessment uh how how does that work when do you do the face-to-face Are you gathering information and then that assessment goes to the attorney who can present it to the court? Is that the process? Yes. So when we initiate a referral, we'll do a consultation with the attorney about the history of the case, what they're looking for, what might be helpful in preparation for the hearing that's coming up.

And we'll provide input about what things we might like to see happen. And really the heart of the work is face-to-face with our clients. So we might conduct multiple interviews with a person and not just focusing on that future planning, but spending time understanding both past and present experiences so that we are better able to plan for their future. The reentry planning is really collaborative with our clients and with our community partners. So it's not just one document that the social worker is deciding what should be in it. It's a collaborative document. And it really starts with what our clients identify as their goals and identify as their needs. And identifying those things really comes through that prolonged engagement with our clients to really understand them.

So in addition to the face-to-face contact with our clients, we're also then really reviewing the whole range of records, especially focusing on health and mental health records while they've been incarcerated, it. Recognizing the gaps in services or what might be better available in the community in terms of their mental health or medical needs. I work with a lot of people who are starting to age. They've been incarcerated long term, and we're seeing a lot of chronic medical issues that we want to make sure to flag and understand the symptoms and how is that person managing that chronic illness right now. So those are the gaps that we're looking for. It also includes doing a lot of interviews with family members or friends and trying to understand the network of support that

may be already in the community, seeing what kind of support we can offer and re-establishing those relationships. And then also bringing on board our community engagement coordinator, who is our expert in community resources. So she is a skilled community worker who keeps those lines of communication open with providers? What changes have happened? Well, how has funding changed for that provider? Who are they able to accept right now? So by having that resource as well, it's been really beneficial for that collaborative re-entry process. Actually, that sort of put me on some of the other questions I was going to ask, but that's important because you guys touched on a number of things that I think social workers, certainly who

understand working with transitioning individuals of how the transition planning works and how that gets identified, but that whole issue of gaps in services. And let me backtrack a little because you mentioned seniors, elderly transitioning individuals, and there's not enough information on that, on what their needs. And then that really gets into the issue of financial assistance and And sometimes families don't exist anymore. So what I thought of myself, I'll ask you my question. So I'm very curious about that and connecting that kind of individual. And it really is depending on what age those individuals are and what level of functioning they are.

That would seem to be a kind of a very special need there. And I think that that is the need for that prolonged engagement with our client to really go through those records and understand the experience of incarceration, because there are times that people have had identify family members, but because of the experience of incarceration, they may not have been in contact with their family for a number of years. So having time in the reentry planning process to reengage communication, see what the barriers were. Sometimes it's really just a matter of logistics and the difficulty with the institutions to maintain contact. There was no falling out. There was no conflict. It was just really a burden to try to keep communication open. So that's part of the assessment process is looking at those family relationships and the changes of their medical conditions over time. part of that too is then their individual experience of the the conditions that they're managing are they you know because of different roles in the institution people may not have the

self-management skills for diabetes or for something that they would be managing independently in the community but because of restrictions within the medical system in the division of corrections they're reliant on nursing staff to manage that that care so that's one of the things that we want to flag as well as that education around chronic illness and how to manage it independently. Right and that's that's the real challenge of transition planning like this and you guys also talked about the whole issue of behavioral health in particular I sort of want to separate that into the mental health side and also the substance use side of it but on a mental health side as we all know that the person may be having some active either not crisis but

certain needs psychosis kind of needs and that transition and connecting that individual to a service once they are going back into the community I'm assuming the coordinator I forget the title for the person that you identify the community person is working with various systems in Maryland mental health systems and helping to ensure first of all medication and that they're transitioning with the appropriate amount of medication and then reconnecting to some level of required and essential services. So are my assumptions correct?

Is that how that goes? The timing of it is also very important. So the social worker will do a lot of upfront assessment of the client and identify the needs that we predict that person might need support with in the community. So then we're doing a referral and a consultation with our community partners and with our community engagement specialists and say, you know, does this person need a residential treatment center for release or are they planning on going home with family members? And then building out from that housing plan, the additional support services. We have a few really strong community

partners that have acted as sort of re-entry hubs that once we know that if that person is receiving housing services from this partner organization, I know they're going to support that person in enrolling in a Medicaid plan. I know they're going to support that person in getting to their medical appointments and getting refills of their prescriptions. And I know that they're going to help facilitate the conversations and appointments with parole and probation. So once we get that person connected to these services and have these re-entry hubs, it allows for that work to happen immediately afterwards. Illinois DCFS is hiring. We offer mission-driven careers and an opportunity to make a difference for Illinois children and families.

There are many reasons to join Illinois DCFS, including competitive salaries, excellent benefits, career advancement opportunities, tuition reimbursement, and more. Professionals who are bilingual in Spanish and English are in high demand and may be eligible for additional compensation. To learn more about current job openings, please visit dcfsjobs.illinois.gov. To learn about the DCFS mission and more about the agency, visit dcfs.illinois.gov. We hope that you will consider joining our team. One thing I didn't touch on, we probably need to make that differential, the person incarcerated and the difference between jails and prisons you guys i'm assuming again you're dealing

both with individuals who may wind up in jail or may wind up or are in prison and transitioning am i correct about that if the person is in prison as opposed to jail do you guys do you work with that population yes i would say that i mean joni predominantly works with people who are in prison because she's she's with um and right joni um she mostly works people who are in prison because um because those are people who have been incarcerated after they've been convicted for for a significant period of time but our work that is with people who are pre-trial or individuals who are sentenced to a very short period of time usually a year or less they'll stay at their local jail and um and the the two i mean you know overall they're both correctional

facilities, they're both very carceral in nature, but there are some significant differences between them. I would say one is, I mean, you know, people in prison are generally there for a long time. And so you both have some of the, I think, I would say probably some greater re-entry issues because the person has a greater gap from when they're returning home, but they also have more time to prepare for that because you know when that person's release is, you have sort of the time to work with them in advance. The jail environment tends to be a little bit more chaotic because it doesn't, it's short term and it's often that somebody won't necessarily know whether they're going to be released at their next court date or if something is going to change. So you sort of

have to be ready and sort of, and do as much planning as you can, but it's sort of at a quicker pace, but with people who are a little bit closer to both like where they're going and where they were before. One of the big pieces I wanted to highlight too about our collaboration is and the timing of this is working with the Division of Corrections and their treatment staff, their medical staff and their social workers to do as much pre-release services as possible. So they are able to put in applications for medical assistance before release and that just having that number in place allows our reentry partners to start services right away.

we're reducing sort of that gray area or that gap in services between the moment of release and when they're able to enroll in benefits. Some things cannot be applied for until that person is out on the street and in the community and can show up to an office, but whatever we can get in place before their release, we're trying to make sure that we're collaborating with the treatment staff in the prison as best as possible. And one of the biggest, biggest issues, especially for long-term incarceration is making sure that that person has a birth certificate social security card and is ready to get state i.d and those can be some really tricky issues to navigate if somebody's been incarcerated for 40 or 50 years as you all know there's a a lot of advocacy going

on there's a bill on the hill dealing with medicaid in terms of being able to do assessments and eligibility prior to release of that individual. That impacts jails a lot. A person may have been mentally ill, winds up in jail, loses Medicaid, but has been in the system and ways of expediting so that when that person is transitioning, they can go directly into services.

So that does, it is a challenge and it's a particular challenge. And as you guys are saying, it really requires collaboration with the local communities on making that happen i'll just add it also requires a lot of flexibility from our community partners so we do a lot of advocacy there to say here are our needs here are the barriers here are the challenges we're facing that i can't find a solution to but can you still work with our clients even if they don't have insurance right away or whatever the issue may be so uh our collaboration works best when we can all

be a little flexible and understand those individual needs because every experience is going to be a little bit different yeah it is and that's the great job that you guys and programs like yours do now the biggest thing i noticed for as a challenge are the guests we keep on saying gaps but there are some areas that are i know a monumental gas i know we talked about housing as a probably usually the number one gap uh and getting someone who's leaving if they're not connected to a family uh where do they get released to and what's the housing resources out there and often the case except especially in my experience i should do stuff many years ago it's not really new it's stuff we used to do in the community over 20

years ago and try to connect people to to housing and and it's always been a very very difficult thing. And we don't want to bring somebody to homelessness. So there is that one gap that I think everybody needs to talk about, certainly needs to think about. So I'm sure that you guys have some conversations about, and probably some resources. That's really the heart of the reentry plan is where we start and making sure someone has a safe place to go. So if that's with a family member, we're talking about their needs and making sure that the housing setup is going to meet that person's need. Again, working with older clients, I worked with a man who is in a wheelchair and he really planned on going home to live with his sister who unfortunately

lived in a Baltimore typical row home with a lot of stairs and no facilities for him on the first floor. So we quickly recognized that that was not going to be at first an adequate placement for him and had to do some problem solving. So it's identifying those issues right up front so that there's not a crisis on the back end. Again, we've identified several community partners who've been very flexible in placement and able to provide transitional housing for especially our longer-term clients who've been incarcerated long-term and are coming home. One of the big challenges after that, that's the initial plan. We've had a lot of trouble then with that second phase of moving from transitional housing to had pretty well coordinated at this point but what's

the next step in permanent housing and finding affordable rental units with a criminal record has been um that second phase of re-entry planning that has been uh also very difficult what other gaps do you think that that are priority gaps sure um yeah and i'll say um sort of before then i know i mean joni is it's really focused on that sort of long-term prison um you know individuals who who are coming back from a long-term um sentence which which certainly housing is is sort of a challenge for all of them because they don't have a residence that they've been in for some time at the um at the pre-trial level and people who are usually still at the local county jail often there were focused on getting people into like whatever housing they had some of many

of them are, you know, were houseless and have those similar issues. But many of them, it's because they have either a substance use disorder or other mental health issue that needs to be addressed before they can safely be at home. And so there's a kind of a focus of making sure to find the right residential program for them. And that's where, you know, our social workers and our peer recovery specialists really, you know, are kind of focused there. And I would say with all of that. And I think even for the people who do have a place that they're going, you know, they do have a home and that they're going to, one of the biggest challenges is the literal getting somebody from the facility they're incarcerated in to where they need to be.

You know, they don't have a car. Public transportation is, you know, limited at best in most places and almost never will go to a jail or a prison. So, you know, and this is, again, sort of going back to where Second Chance Act funding has been really helpful, is that we have a client fund that includes an account with Uber. So we are able to have, every day we arrange rides for people who are being released so that they can be picked up at the jail and be driven to the program that they're going to or their residence. I would say, particularly for people with a substance use disorder, probably one of the most important life-saving things that we do because the risk of an overdose is higher among those first 48 hours

of release among anybody anywhere. I mean, it's just such a heightened risk time that if we can safely get the person from the jail to their treatment program, the likelihood of an overdose is just going to go down dramatically. And so, you know, some programs do have their own van service and that they can pick people up but but again depending on where the person was incarcerated or or the size of their program that's not always as as accessible well that that's very good because one of the things obviously is getting back and forth now that sort of brings to mind the issue of parole and probation department and how that's coordinated and connect to that follow-up services so let me start with the parole and probation

coordination if the person especially has any kind of traditional release and has to get to appointments and transportation would seem to be one of the concerns is is there a good communication with uh parole provision on these things that we don't want people to be to recidivate because of that violation of these kinds of violations But the housing programs we've been working with, there has been good collaboration, making sure people have transportation to their appointments. And once those initial visits are set up, sometimes then the requirements will drop down to weekly phone calls versus weekly visits.

So getting those initial visits set up and coordinated is really important, and we've had a lot of support there from our treatment providers. that's also education that we're doing with the client and with their family members prior to release to make sure that they're that that piece is in place if they are going to a family-based housing setting of their returning home and follow-up services in general are usually something that the community your community person would work with the provider in the community uh is there lots of time that that the the public defender's community person works with the individuals there's like a handoff and then they they once they connect uh with a service in

the community your folks sort of back away from it yeah so the social workers do a lot of that upfront assessment and preparation for court and hopefully when our release plan is put into place uh our clients are well connected then to the community providers and our community engagement coordinator because they have such strong communication with those programs or providing that follow-up as well and having that communication. But really, once the case is over, we're hopeful that we're at that phase where we can close out and don't return back to our caseload. Yeah. And I will add, because I know Joni works very closely with the community engagement coordinator, but in other parts of our representation throughout the state,

we actually, that's where our peer recovery specialists come in, that we have, you know, that they've been part of the team, they have a, you know, they have a relationship with the client and they also have relationships with a lot of the programs that people are referred to so that they can provide that warm handoff. And then particularly if they're working sort of in the pre-trial setting, so our representation is continuing, they will sort of continue to provide sort of some light case management on that and coordination to make sure that the person is sort of receiving what they need in the community, following what they have to do for court, and are also coming back for the court dates that they need to.

What kind of segues into, and I'm going to listen on this, into data collection and reporting and really looking at how well is your program working? There must be some analysis that you guys are doing either through the grantee, grantor, or through your own agency. So So have you guys been doing that, and are you seeing good data? Yeah, I mean, and I'll actually, I'll sort of let Joni start a bit, because there's sort of a foundation. I can talk a little bit about the grant data, but I think the real foundation for that comes from what we call the Unger case, which, well, we call Unger, sort of comes from a case that was decided some years ago. I know this case.

I remember this back. Yeah, so that really provided the opportunity for a number of, for individuals who had served a long period of time, whose convictions were sort of suddenly overturned for kind of a reason. And then sort of the approach that we came up with, which I think is probably, I mean, I don't know if, I mean, Joni was sort of central to that and sort of part of her job that really showed how this model could work. So I think she can talk a little about that, and then I can apply it to our grants. Well, in general, I think our data collection is really focused on specific slices of projects or grants or different types of cases that we work on. It's hard to capture it across the agency because there's so many differences in populations and representation. So the data collection really is focused on where we can limit the focus a little bit in one specific project. So the Unger

cases came about in 2012, and it was a group of 200 people who were impacted by a court of appeals decision that granted them new trials if they were convicted prior to 1980. So, I mean, there was a large number of people who had been incarcerated long-term, and instead of having new trials in all of these cases, we were able to negotiate agreements with the state's attorney's office and saying, this person can safely return to the community, and let's resolve the case that way. So, a large number of people were released in five or six years since that decision was issued, And there was some different programs or different foundations that were interested in doing some research on that group of people. So the Justice Policy Institute in particular did a great report on the Unger success and the model that we use in providing reentry services and social work services to plan for somebody's release and the success of that project.

for people who were convicted of violent offenses and had been incarcerated long-term and who were now older in age and very low recidivism, I think about 3%. So it was a huge success. And so that's an example of how we partnered with some different organizations that have been done that follow-up data on recidivism, which can be really hard to capture. And just then keeping my own case files and notes, you know, I know people aren't coming back to me. So we do have that in regard as well. And I know Melissa has her process for the grant reporting and the different metrics that need to be included in that process. And you want to share that, Melissa? Sure. Yeah. And as Joni sort of pointed out, we have at this point, it's all kind of sliced and

diced of like different, different data collection on sort of different projects in different jurisdictions. Um, so I don't have as much sort of overall, but I do specifically on the, the second chance act. And I can tell you even beyond that on our, you know, our projects that, that pretty much all, um, focus on, on this type of work, whether, you know, but some, some may focus specifically on, um, people who have substance use disorder, others focus on some people who might have some complex mental health issues or, you know, some focus specifically on youth in certain parts of the state. All of our projects have very low recidivism rates, less than 5%, even though we're often targeting populations that have among the highest recidivism rates.

And so, you know, so on that, that's sort of, I mean, you know, that's sort of like one of those metrics that people often look at, and we can consistently show that we're incredibly successful there. You know, I'll say just on our second chance act on grant, and this is looking specifically at the adult one, because our youth one has just started up this year. So we don't have data for that just yet, but, um, but looking at, um, sort of the 2024, um, information on our adult second chance act, um, we serve there over 180 individuals, 120 of whom were connected to, to drug treatment. Um, 17 were connected to health insurance, 34 were connected to permanent housing, um, you know, and, um, and three had secured employment during that period where we work

them that's usually something that comes a little bit later so um you know so we we see that as being very impactful um you know for those individuals um and um and for sort of our practice overall right now my last question is an asw how can we as an association be helpful not i want to sort of get some little background of that again that we've been really really involved but don't issue broadly of the legal criminal system, specifically around reentry and identifying the roles and working with social workers about working in this environment. What can we do? And we do have some ability to get information out or just working with any agency, if you want, to just get your information out further. this out. Any thoughts? I'll start. I have a few thoughts, but I think particularly, you know, I think a lot of NASW members are working at community agencies that may or may not work

with people who are justice involved, and really both encouraging for them to do so and to recognize that our clients are like everybody else, and they deserve the same quality of services and the same level of dignity, and that that's true regardless of what the person was charged or convicted of. I think sometimes we see a lot of distinction based purely on the name of an offense, both not necessarily knowing the circumstances for that individual, but also not allowing for them to ever move on with their life in a way that's really good for safety and the whole community. So I think for me, that sort of is the first thing. I'll also, before I turn it over to Joni, I'll make a little bit of a plug maybe for some of the student NASW members in

particular. One of the things for us that's also great about the grants like the Second Chance Act are that our social work services that we provide there are typically for relative to other things we do in our agency, the grant work is often more at the entry level space so that people can get experience working with our clients and doing that work there. And then as they get more clinical expertise, they're also involved in some more complex cases and some, you know, some mitigation and other parts of our practice that Joni's also involved in and just not talking about as much here. And so encouraging people to, you know, to sort of consider this type of work and, you know, and to connect with us, connect with their public defender office where they are to see what

opportunities are available. Do you want to add something to that? Yeah, I think I touched base with my director about this. And we, again, have a passion for this work. And it is a specialty area of practice. And when it fits for you and you have, you know, starting at that entry level, there's a lot of room for growth. The possibilities in this work is pretty endless. And it's going from that direct community-based engagement and potentially then doing expert testimony and providing that clinical expertise as we advance in our careers so really is a specialty area of practice where there's a lot of opportunity and it really starts with having that ability to connect with clients regardless of their

background and I think that just being able to provide that technical support and assistance and plugging this field of work is a really great area of practice is where I'd like to see support I also am really passionate passionate about finding ways for social workers to sustain themselves and have longevity doing difficult work. That comes from having offices that are fully staffed. It comes from having new people coming in, the ability to mentor new social workers. So models and support for that mentorship and longevity in practice, I think are really important as well. Well, I'll do what I can on my part to share. Certainly the podcast should be helpful,

But I'm very seriously that any way I could help out or because I often do blogs also for NESW and actually do social justice briefs. I have not done a really brief in a long time on this. So if you guys would be interested in doing something else, I'm there. I'm down with that. I know a few people who love to write, some former clients who love to provide some mentorship and talking about experiences. That would be a thought. I mean, if you know someone or want to coordinate some other contact around putting something, especially those who are impacted, that to have their voice in something that comes out of NASW would be really, really good. And we'd be open to doing that.

But thank you so much. This is really great. This is kudos to your office and the work that you do. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies.

You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.