Second Chance Act Training and Technical Assistance: Education and Employment

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center is seeking supplemental funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to continue serving as the Second Chance Act (SCA) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) provider for Category 4: Employment and Education. CSG goals will be to promote evidence-based education and training in correctional facilities and in the community and to increase employment skills and opportunities for people preparing for release from prisons and jails. Leveraging their experience operating the National Reentry Resource Center, serving as the TTA provider to SCA education and employment grantees, and more broadly serving as a TTA provider to over 1,000 SCA and other federal grantees, the CSG Justice Center will offer a robust set of TTA activities that include individualized attention from subject matter experts, peer learning opportunities, grantee progress monitoring, and practical resources to guide grantees through their projects. CSG will tailor TTA to the specific Category 4 grant tracks and to different types of agencies and programs within a given track. CGS's individualized approach will include tailoring questions in the Planning and Implementation Guides; hosting webinars for specific grant tracks and on cross-cutting topics; and facilitating discussions to strengthen connections and partnerships across agencies and systems.

CSG's TTA approach will be guided by the core Reentry 2030 strategies (i.e., scaling what works, strengthening cross-systems collaboration, setting public goals for reentry success and racial equity, improving data, and addressing barriers), and will center the voices of people with lived experience. Further, we will employ several strategies to help advance the field. These strategies will include collecting data and producing briefs; curating existing resources; attending conferences to share findings; hosting learning forums on essential topics in workforce development and education; providing ad hoc TTA to non-grantees; and collaborating with other BJA-sponsored TTA providers to raise awareness of Pell grant reinstatement for incarcerated students.

CSG will pursue the following objectives: 1) position grantees to expand educational opportunities and employability for currently and formerly incarcerated people; and 2) advance policies and practices that promote cross-sector partnerships in the field, eliminate barriers to education and employment opportunities, and scale effective programs.