Santa Clara County’s Re-Entry Resource Center Supports Safer, Healthier Communities

This month we are highlighting how the County of Santa Clara and their community partners re coming together to support offenders coming out of jails and prisons and supporting them in living a life that is free from violence. This is a great example of how government agencies, nonprofit organizations and educational institutions can come together to support people in creating a new way of living.

Lack of healthcare, a history of substance abuse, unemployment and often a need for housing are just a few of the challenges facing former offenders when they are released from County jail or State prison.

The Santa Clara County Re-Entry Resource Center provides essential support services and resources, such as health care access, alcohol and drug treatment, education, employment and housing assistance. These services are being provided to successfully reintegrate former offenders back into the Santa Clara County community, and are part of the strategy to reduce repeat offenses, as well as to create a healthier, safer community. Buu Thai, the Re-Entry Policy Coordinator says “Our goal is to have the RRC be a one-stop multi-services center where individuals coming out of the criminal justice can receive needed services.”

The data reveal that the County’s strategy is working. Historically, two-thirds of those released were rearrested for new offenses.  This has changed dramatically, now, four out of five individuals are succeeding and have not had any repeat offenses since the program started on October 1, 2011.

“We have a new approach and are providing services in a way that has never been done before in Santa Clara County,” said Dr. Nancy Peña, Mental Health Department Director, who was instrumental in establishing the Re-Entry Multi-Agency Program. “Clients are taking steps to change their lives. Whether it’s career development, finding employment, addressing mental health issues or addiction challenges, or taking the time to map their road to long-term recovery, the Re-Entry Program is there to help.”

A big part of the Resource Center is the Faith Re-Entry Collaborative.  The faith based organizations provide the former offenders counseling, food, resources, mentoring with trained volunteers,and support from 3 different faith based resource centers in the valley.

Cora Tomalinas, the chair of the Re-Entry Network, which is the board of community members and professional partners who are overseeing the development of the Re-Entry Resource Center, sums up the goal of this resource center, beautifully.  She says “Sometimes we forget that prisoners coming back to the community are just as afraid, as some of us are, of changes wrought on each side of the fence.  I feel we need to break through that fear by providing hope and support, in other words - LOVE.”

East Side Heroes - Making A Difference, Changing Lives

Enrique Flores has devoted over ten years to mentoring at-risk youth in the San Jose neighborhoods where he grew up, helping them to realize their academic potential through scholarships to top high schools and to find a better way to live. He founded East Side Heroes in 2003. He is also the Director of the County of Santa Clara’s Corazon Project, founded by Santa Clara County Supervisor, Dave Cortese. East Side Heroes and the Corazon Project are committed to improving the quality of life for young people and their families through educational scholarships, innovative student-led community improvement projects, and personal life-long mentorship designed to produce the next generation of problem-solving leaders. Both the Corazon Project and East Side Heroes work to motivate at-risk, gang-affiliated teens to fight against the cycle of violence.
The goal of East Side Heroes is to provide scholarships and mentoring to at-risk teens to facilitate their acceptance into private high schools and colleges. The Corazon Project supports teens in creating positive change within their communities. Project Corazon believes that positive change happens when alternatives to a violent, unhealthy life-style are offered. Teens respond when mentors speak their language, and as a result, they begin to see that having a job and living in an ethical way can lead to success.
But one thing The Corazon Project doesn’t do is force people. “We disempower when we chase people or carry them. Intervention is like trying to get someone to lose weight and to keep it off. It’s not overnight,” says Flores. One of the projects in Flores’ programs for youth is to paint murals on otherwise rundown or graffiti-covered walls in their neighborhoods. As a result, teens take pride in expressing themselves more positively. Surprisingly, there has been no opposition from gangs. Flores says the key to leaving a gang safely is not an overt announcement that you’re leaving, but a slow disengagement by finding different, healthier activities. East Side Heroes and the Corazon Project support young people with not entering gangs and with leaving them.
Flores’ own story of overcoming anger and gang mentality is poignant and profound. He was stabbed when he was 13-years-old and his brother was stabbed at age 17. Raised on the east side of San Jose by Mexican immigrant parents, he attended early grades in the Alum Rock School District and, in the 10th grade, received a scholarship to Bellarmine College Preparatory. That scholarship changed his life, sparing him from the East Side’s atmosphere of drugs and gangs, in which many of his friends were engaged. He was then able to attend Santa Clara University, earning a Bachelors degree in sociology and a Masters in counseling. He has returned to the neighborhood where he grew up, to pay forward what he received.
Enrique Flores’ service earned him the Santa Clara University Alumni Association's 2010 Ignatian Award. This award recognizes alumni who live the SCU ideals of competence, conscience, and compassion, and who have been a credit to the Alumni Association and the University through outstanding service to humanity.

ESH - Making A Difference, Changing Lives 

For more information contact: East Side Heroes via email: enrique_essj@hotmail.com

Santa Clara County Funds Violence Prevention Program

Dr. Marty Fenstersheib

The County of Santa Clara Public Health Department has received funding from the county Board of Supervisors to bring focus to violence prevention.  Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the Santa Clara County Public Health Officer, has stated in a recent op-ed article in the San Jose Mercury News, that violence in our culture is a public health issue and demands a public health response. He says that this means we must call attention not to its symptoms, but to its source, focus on prevention and ask which populations are the most vulnerable. Read full article.

 Andrea Flores Shelton

Andrea Flores Shelton, the Injury and Violence Prevention Manager, hired as a result of this new funding, says that in this county, violence is most prevalent as gang activity, domestic assaults and bullying in schools. She believes that our entire community, our families and our schools are affected by this violence. Andrea is working with the cities in the county to support their violence prevention strategies and is also working within the public health department in an effort to determine how violence prevention can be woven into its existing programs.

Local Elementary School Children Learn How to Resolve Conflict in a Peaceful Way

At Anne Darling Elementary School in San Jose, the children are learning about a special labyrinth, which is a tool to resolve conflict. Tina Margason, a retired teacher, certified labyrinth facilitator and meditation teacher is teaching thechildren that walking this labyrinth is a peaceful way to resolve a perceived injustice. Labyrinth walking is among thesimplest forms of focused walking meditation and is often used for stress reduction.  

Tina teaches classes using literature that tells a story about conflict. Using the character's perspective and voice, she illustrates how to use the labyrinth to solve the problem fromthe story. They also role play some school conflicts that thechildren have experienced so that they can use the labyrinth and embody the process of resolving them. Tina states thatthe children loved that they could do this independently fromthe teachers.

Tina started out using a labyrinth that she drew on a tarp, but found that the children need to have the labyrinth available outside during recess and lunch so that the children can use it when needed. The program has been so successful that a permanent labyrinth is in the process of being painted on theplayground. The on-site counselor has told Tina that the labyrinth has made a big difference in the numbers of children referred to her and that the campus feels calmer.

For more information about the labyrinth for nonviolence in schools project contact us.