Announcing The 2011 Discharge Planning Manual (DPM). You may have seen copies at the Prison Summit during AIDS Education Month. The DPM was created to supplement the AIDS Library’s ongoing prisoner correspondence program. We reply to letters from prisoners with questions about HIV/AIDS, other health issues, reentry resources, and more. Last year we answered 747 letters! If you know someone incarcerated, please put them in touch with us and we can mail them vital information.
A note about who the DPM is for: The DPM contains general advice on reentry and specific resources for individuals coming out of prison to Philadelphia and the surrounding area. It also contains an introduction to HIV/AIDS, tips for HIV-positive people being released from prison, and a medical summary form intended to help HIV-positive people maintain consistent care during their reentry. As such, the ideal audience for the DPM is an HIV-positive person returning to Philadelphia, but it contains content that would be of use to someone who is HIV-negative and returning to Philadelphia, or something who is HIV-positive and returning elsewhere.
Below you’ll see how to get a copy of the DPM, a list of prison & reentry resources available in the AIDS Library, a collection of links to the web presences of Philadelphia reentry organizations, and a variety of web resources around reentry. If you have any questions about the information here, or about anything else, let me know.
The DPM can be accessed at The Discharge Planning Manual page of the Library’s website. You can open it up and print it. Please also check out the Library’s Publications page to access our Resource Guide and other Library publications.
If you would like a DPM in booklet form, they are available in the AIDS Library or at FIGHT’s reentry program, the Institute for Community Justice. We can mail a copy to anyone who requests one, as well as answer questions about discharge planning to the best of our ability. Please contact the AIDS Library by phone (215-985-4851) or email (library@fight.org) to request a copy.
The following materials are available in the AIDS Library. Come check us out! (See our hours.)
The DPM covers all major reentry service providers in Philadelphia in more detail than I’ll go in to in this email. For quick reference, though, here are the websites of some useful organizations. More information, programming, and contact info can be found at each website.
In previous Reference Librarian blog posts I’ve covered two topics central to reentry. Take a look at them for much more info on Job Training and Recovery (including how to get in to Drug & Alcohol Recovery programs).
And for the resources and info about a third important reentry piece, check out the AIDS Library’s Housing Guide.
Some of these resources are aimed at the people being released. Some are aimed at those creating programs for those people. Some could be used by both populations.
The National H.I.R.E. Network has a website with a lot of information, including:
The National Institute of Corrections collects a lot of useful publications on its Offender Employment webpage, including:
Public/Private Ventures has a webpage of Reentry Publications that can be downloaded freely online, including:
The Legal Action Center has a lot of great content including:
The U.S. Department of Justice Reentry website has:
The Council of State Governments Justice Center Reentry Policy Council website has:
The National Reentry Resource Center has:
The Urban Institute has a webpage collecting some Reentry Research papers, including a report on Partnering With Jails to Improve Reentry: A Guidebook for Community-Based Organizations
The PBS series Frontline has a documentary called The Released that can be watched online. It focuses on reentry and the cycle of recidivism among people with mental illnesses.