Looking for new alumni ideas

Hey everyone,

We're working nationally and locally to develop new ideas for alumni projects. We're hoping to create a variety of ways for Inside-Out alumni to stay involved, whether they are connected to a local Inside-Out group or not. We hope to have more folks writing on the blog (to connect, please email nationalinsideoutalumni@gmail.com)

We imagine that some groups can form new projects and programs as alumni. For those people, we're looking for more ideas like the youth book club in Oregon or the re-entry program in Philadelphia. Any suggestions?

It's also possible that we as an organization could help get people hooked up with programs with similar ideologies, that aren't affiliated with Inside-Out. An example in Oregon would be volunteering with Sponsors, a really fabulous re-entry program in Eugene, which is a really fabulous organization and is co-directed by Inside-Out trained Paul Solomon.

So if you've got ideas, please comment! We'd love to hear from you.

Second annual Northwest regional Hub meeting

Over fifteen alumni from Oregon State University, Chemeketa Community College, and the University of Oregon joined Inside-Out instructors and community members for the second annual Northwest Regional Hub meeting! There is some incredible energy growing in Oregon, with a fast-expanding base of participants and ideas. Folks in Oregon are hoping to create a real network of students, working on existing projects and creating new ones.

Some specific ideas coming out of the Hub:

- Develop and share templates for past experiences

- Hold alumni training for facilitation and project creation

- Create some regional structure for collaboration

- Create an art project with folks on the inside

- Work with a local post-release gardening project

- Publicize Inside-Out regionally

- Recruit new instructors and students

- Start new book-club projects in Portland and (maybe) Salem

Hopefully these ideas will get off the ground quickly! In the meantime, there's a lot to celebrate from having all these alumni in one room, building the movement in Oregon.

Philadelphia to hold an Alumni Training

The Philadelphia Alumni group will be holding a training tomorrow, January 15th, to prepare for their work with Community College of Philadelphia's work with a re-entry program. The training is designed to improve facilitation skills and to discuss the various preparation needs to engage in this kind of work.

Lori Pompa will be leading the training, with the help of Philadelphia alumni coordinators Frank and Cyndi. The training will run from 10 am to 6 pm and will include discussions of program rules, parameters, values, goals, and a space to express any concerns the participants might have. Facilitating dialogue and running the class is a major focus of the training, and will hopefully help the group create a dynamic and engaged classroom environment to enable leadership from all participants.

Hopefully all participants will finish the training with a strong grasp on the theoretical and practical issues of the program, and will therefore take strong leadership in the future of the project. Another hope is that the training templates from Philadelphia and Oregon can be blended to offer alumni facilitation trainings across the country.

Temple Alumni New Project Proposal

The Inside-Out Alumni group at Temple University is gearing up to begin an exciting new program working with a Re-Entry Project. The project is still in the development phase, but things are moving quickly toward implementation through a collaboration with the Community College of Philadelphia.

Here's the proposal for their project:

The Temple University alumni group of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is proposing an “Inside-Out”-inspired workshop series with participants of the Community College of Philadelphia -Cambria Re-Entry Pilot. Our vision of the project incorporates Inside-Out values, processes, and parameters applied to an ongoing project that would include the inside participants of the Cambria Pilot as well as Temple University and CCP Inside-Out alumni in weekly dialogues about crime and justice as it pertains to course work assigned by CCP in their respective pilot. Our hope is that this will not only offer constructive and innovative programming for the inside participants, but will also allow previous Inside-Out outside participants to continue to engage what they learned about dialogue, encounters with individuals of different backgrounds, and the setting of correctional institutions. Moreover, the intent is to complement the Cambria pilot in a fashion that will facilitate the success of all involved in this innovative effort with an overarching synchronicity in motivation and outcome.

We envision the project to consist of a once-a-week workshop (ten weeks) involving conversations about subject matter with a unifying theme. We will begin this series in mid-January. While there will be a facilitator designated to maintain focus and to facilitate dialogue, there will not be a single leader of the class, but rather group ownership (a shared collective) of the material and the conduct of the workshops. The workshops will be based on intergroup dialogue and conducted in a circle format as are Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program classes, with one-on-one and small group discussions along with large group dialogue. Ideally, the group will include equal numbers of outside and inside participants, so that all participants can feel on an equal footing with one another. Realistically, according to the numbers to date, the outside members comprise about six to ten members. We plan to hold a series of recruitment presentations at Inside-Out final classes in the upcoming week in an effort to bolster membership for Temple’s group and the CCP pilot project.

More information about this project coming soon!

UO book club at Serbu Juvenile Facility

The Inside-Out Alumni group at the University of Oregon has started a new Inside-Out style project: a book club at the local juvenile facility.

This summer, four UO students and ten youth met weekly for a five-week pilot project book club.  We read comic books together: the outside students identified some graphic novels appropriate for the setting, and the youth selected The Ultimate Spider-Man for the summer book.

Our discussions included topics as varied as revenge, dealing with loss, gender issues, what we would do if we had super powers, relationships, and personal responsibility.  We also used ice breakers and activities to keep everyone engaged and to facilitate the classroom experience.

This pilot project will hopefully evolve into an ongoing and permanent project.  The UO-Serbu partnership has already generated a significant amount of enthusiasm on both sides.  We hope that, in the future, we will have an equal number of inside and outside participants.

Can't wait to see where this leads!