This recent article from the Council of State Governments highlights the Santa Maria’s Path to Recovery Program, which received a 2013 Second Chance Act mentoring grant, and has been serving women in the Houston area since 2011. More than 370 women and their children are Path to Recovery alums, having moved through programs such as BAMBI, which is the Baby and Mother Bonding Initiative, or Women Helping Ourselves (WHO), which serves pregnant female offenders in Harris County Community Supervision & Correction Department.

From the article:

• Working closely with the Harris County Sheriff’s office, the STAR Drug Court, and other local programs, agencies, and criminal justice professionals, Santa Maria places eligible women in one of its specialized residential facilities for a period of up to a year, often with their young children, and provides programming that includes educational and vocational services, life skills training, transitional housing, and more.
• Upon leaving Santa Maria facilities, recovery coaches continue to provide the net of support they need to stay clean and crime free “for as long as it takes…forever if necessary,” according to Amelia Murphy, director of Santa Maria’s Recovery Support Services.
• Santa Maria’s recovery coach model is unique in that it assigns peer mentors pre- and post-release to women who are pregnant or parenting, many of whom have been diagnosed with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.
• This approach seems to be working: of the 400 women served since the start of this SCA grant in October 2013, just 14 (3.5 percent) are known to have reoffended to date.

Read the full article

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