Ohio Ex-Offender Reentry Coalition Reentry Services Action Sessions

Reentry Services Grant "Action Sessions"

On June 3rd and June 23rd, the Office of Reentry Services sponsored grant writing “Action Sessions.” These sessions were conducted in partnership with the Office of Criminal Justice Services and with the assistance of the University of Cincinnati. The concept of these sessions was to invite local community partners and coalitions who are applying for Second Chance Act grants to very specific, active working sessions to assist in the writing of the grant applications for the purpose of strengthening the community applications for reentry funding. As teams, the community participants worked together to analyze their problem statements, needs, models and funding requests. Subject matter experts from the OCJS, ODRC and UC then worked with the participants to ensure that the applications were putting forth their best proposals. The community response to the sessions was overwhelmingly positive. Nineteen counties were represented on the first day by 21 participants and 100% of the participants reporting that they were very helpful and 100% indicated would attend again if sponsored. During the second session on the 23rd, 31 participants representing 18 counties worked on their grants and again 100% of the participants reporting that they were very helpful and 100% would attend again if sponsored.