People who are released from prison face many obstacles. From financial stability to building healthy relationships to receiving trust from the community at large, formerly incarcerated people have many difficulties they must overcome before they can successfully become part of society again.
This Design Lab team originally set out to help recently released prisoners reach some important financial stability goals. To do this, the team contacted Free2Succeed, a mentorship program designed to help recently released prisoners successfully assimilate back into society. Through their interviews, the team discovered that it is difficult for mentors to build trust with new mentees. Next, the team created a menu of activities that can be done between mentors and mentees to help build trust. Unfortunately, the team has had a difficult time maintaining consistent communication with the Free2Succeed program and have thus far been unable to implement their ideas with them.
Now, the team is looking to expand to other potential mentorship groups besides the formerly convicted for implementation. The team is looking to offer trust-building ideas with other mentor-based groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
