Metropolitan Community College’s Re-Entry Assistance program serves the currently incarcerated and recently released populations to achieve education and training.
Diane Good-Collins, Re-Entry Assistance program director for Metro, says the goal is to hopefully help individuals find gainful employment opportunities.
Good-Collins says they work with people who are incarcerated in the state, both in federal prisons and county jails.
She says 80% of those held in Nebraska prisons will be released to Omaha and the surrounding areas within the next three years.
"If we don’t make efforts and strive to assist and educate and train them to get out and be employed and to become productive parts of our society, then we will eventually re-incarcerate them and pay higher taxes to continually re-incarcerate them. And also there will be a breakdown in our communities with missing family members.”
Metropolitan Community College’s Re-Entry Assistance program recently received a grant from Mutual of Omaha for $5,000 to support the program’s efforts at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women.
Good-Collins says the Re-Entry Assistance program helps women create a solid plan prior to their release.
She says the women take assessments to find out where the gaps are in their transition plan so those areas can be addressed before they’re released.
To learn more about the program, the website is mccneb.edu/reentry.