WPA’s Reentry Education
and Training services
include:
Women who have personal experience with
the criminal justice system and are looking
for a means to help others can apply
to become Peer Mentors.
Peers complete an initial training that
addresses job responsibilities and the
culture of the workplace, listening skills,
information about the range of services
available for women with criminal justice
involvement, and guidance on how to cope
with work-related questions and difficulties.
Ongoing sessions serve to develop peers’ interpersonal
communication and practical work-related
skills. After completing training, peers
assist clients by meeting them upon release
from prison or jail, accompanying them
to medical and other appointments, and
helping them find answers to questions
about life in the community. Peers receive
stipends to offset expenses associated
with participation in the peer program.
WPA provides HIV and Women’s
Health Education for women
who participate in WPA’s community
programs and also for women at probation
offices, Rikers Island jail, and Taconic,
Bayview, and Bedford Hills Correctional
Facilities. Education is intended not
only to convey information, but also
to encourage individual women to conduct
a self-assessment of risk for HIV infection
and other health needs. WPA staff work
with women who determine that they
may need HIV or other diagnostic testing
to help them access services. WPA staff
then provide support and connection
to care in response to test results
and other needs.
Since the early 1990s, WPA has coordinated
the ACE (AIDS Care and
Education) and CARE (Counseling
AIDS Resource and Education) inmate-run
HIV education programs at Bedford Hills
and Taconic prisons. These nationally
renowned programs provide intensive training
to inmates so they can become HIV educators
for their peers in prison. From their
founding—by
inmates who were concerned that incarcerated
women had neither adequate information
about HIV nor access to quality care and
treatment—the ACE and CARE programs
have stayed true to the mission of sharing
accurate and current information about
HIV so that women are armed with the
information they need to make decisions
about personal risk, testing, and treatment.
ACE and CARE also facilitate support
groups for incarcerated women who are
living with or otherwise affected by
HIV.
