Transitions to Success ™ – Treating the Condition of Poverty & Changing Lives Bridges Reentry Leads the Charge with Arizona Agencies and Non-Profits

Last summer, Bridges Reentry was awarded a planning grant from the Vitalyst foundation to improve health equity of justice-involved women. The plan was to collaborate with other reentry organizations to develop and coordinate a care system for formerly incarcerated women reentering society that would fill the gaps of inequitable health care. The focus of Bridges Reentry was to be mental health and trauma, addiction relapse protocols, and steps to family reunification.

It’s really all about helping women live their best life. We know the challenges they face when reentering society including economic instability & joblessness, insecure housing and transportation; maintenance of a substance-free lifestyle; physical, mental, and behavioral health issues; coping and relationship-building skills, and especially the stigma attached to female ex-offenders. We also know that most women and their children coming out of prison live in poverty. The science is clear: the condition of poverty is caused by a person’s particular social determinants of health. The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people live, work, and grow. These conditions play a profound role in an individual’s physical, emotional, and financial health. That’s why we have adopted and implemented the Transition to Success ™ model of care framework to align with our Whole Woman Wellness strategy to help them live their best lives.

We started by training 6 coaches-4 from Bridges Reentry staff, including Deacon Gay Romack, and 2 staff from Imagine Therapy. To date, we have trained 17 coaches across multi-disciplines including food bank & homeless shelter social workers. We are creating a coordinated network of organizations that will work together to insure clients receive resources they need to help them move from basic needs to living wage employment. We are also training women to identify and address barriers related to economic insecurity, family reunification, ways to work toward physical, emotional, and social health, and education enrichments for building enhanced life skills and resiliency. It’s a heavy lift, but one that impacts and enhances the outcomes of Bridges Reentry women and others to make a difference in the lives of justice involved women and those caught in the poverty trap.

Our mission is to train more coaches in the Transitions to Success TM methodology and coordinate a network of care across many disciplines to collaborate with clients, including the post-incarcerated women of Bridges Reentry, who are impacted by poverty. Over time, we will collect data on the efficacy of this program and provide information to guide everyone in the field to continually improve the way we treat and support all of our clients caught in the poverty trap.

Your Generous Donations to Bridges Reentry will support the continued training of the proven Transitions to Success™ model, collaborate with other agencies and non-profits as part of the larger care network our women, and others experiencing poverty, will use in Arizona. Most importantly, we will continue to provide this proven program to the women in our residential and mentoring programs to define a path based on their needs, challenges and circumstances—ultimately moving them closer to making their dreams a reality and economic independence.

Learn more about Transitions to Success https://transitiontosuccess.org/