Making Reentry Easier to Navigate
New guides give service providers practical tools to help clients overcome legal, policy and practical barriers
What happens after incarceration? For many people, the challenges are far from over.
Approximately 20,000 people are released from North Carolina prisons each year. State-wide, more than 90% of people currently incarcerated will eventually return to their families and communities. People returning home often face obstacles to housing, employment, health care, public benefits, transportation, and financial stability.
Today, we are proud to announce the launch of six new reentry guides to help service providers navigate legal and policy barriers to best support the people they serve.
“Reentry is about much more than the moment someone leaves incarceration,” said Yvette Garcia Missri, Executive Director of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law. “These guides translate legal and policy knowledge into practical tools that service providers can use to help people navigate barriers and move forward.”
Philip Cooper, Founder and Chief Change Agent of Operation Gateway, a nonprofit organization that centers lived experience while supporting formerly incarcerated individuals returning home, emphasized why that practical support matters: “If we make it hard for them to do good, we make it easy for them to do bad. These guides give service providers practical information they can use to help their clients overcome some of the legal barriers that stand between them and stable housing, employment, health care, and other essentials.”
Six guides. One goal: making reentry easier to navigate.
Child Support: Understand how child support debt accrues, its potential consequences, and options for modifying child support orders.
Employment: Navigate legal and social barriers to employment and find fair-chance hiring resources.
Food & Cash Assistance Programs: Understand eligibility for food assistance, financial assistance, and other public benefits and learn how to apply.
Housing: Understand housing options in North Carolina and learn strategies for responding to denials and expanding access to housing.
Medicaid: Connect people returning from incarceration with health, mental health, and substance use disorder services.
Traffic Fines, Fees, & Driver’s License Suspensions: Help clients check case and license status, pursue payment plans and relief options, and find relevant forms and contacts.
Explore the six reentry guides →
These guides are aimed at a range of service providers including social workers, peer support specialists, and healthcare workers.
“Health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For people returning from incarceration, access to housing, employment, health coverage, transportation, and financial stability can all have a profound impact on health and well-being,” said Evan Ashkin, Director of the North Carolina Formerly Incarcerated Transition Program and Professor of Family Medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill. “These guides give service providers a practical resource for helping clients navigate some of the barriers that can make reentry—and staying healthy—more difficult.”
“These guides reflect the expertise and lived experience of communities across our state,” said Kelly Crosbie, NCDHHS Assistant Secretary of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Use Services. “The Division of Mental Health Developmental Disabilities and Substance Use Services is proud to support tools that make reentry safer, more coordinated, and more equitable—because when individuals succeed after incarceration, entire communities thrive.”
About the Guides: These reentry guides were developed through the North Carolina Technical Assistance Center (NC-TAC). Supported by the NC Department of Health and Human Services’ (NCDHHS) Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services (DMH/DD/SUS), NC-TAC has been a collaboration between the NC Formerly Incarcerated Transition Program (NC FIT), the NC Harm Reduction Coalition (NCHRC), the NC Association of County Commissioners (NCACC), and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law.
While NC-TAC concludes its programming this month, its resources remain available online.