Extended Family Success for Life (EFSL), a reentry program for returning citizens (RCs), those being released from incarceration and reintegrating into their families and communities, has been serving men for the past two years. We have now expanded the program to include female RCs who are coming home to Cherokee, Calhoun, DeKalb, and Etowah counties. We welcome new EFSL Reentry Assistant Tammy Pointer who will help women with lessons to inspire them to “Dream, Learn, and Live.”
Just like EFSL for men, female RCs will learn to dream about what they want for their futures, to learn how to achieve the goals they set for themselves, and to live the skills they have developed through the Extended Family Success for Life program. We hope that this additional support will help prevent RCs from reoffending, reducing the rate of recidivism and breaking the cycle of incarceration in families.
Tammy will guide the RCs through this free, twenty-week long program. In addition to providing mentorship, she will be identifying resources to meet the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter and providing lessons in character development, helping restore their personal foundations so that they can rejoin their families and rebuild their relationships and lives.
EFSL helps men and women navigate reentry, and those who accept the challenges presented to them in Extended Family Success for Life have so much to gain. It takes courage to choose a new life path, which is why the support the RCs receive while in the program is vital to their success.
If you know a returning citizen who is ready for help from Extended Family Success for Life, please email Jerry Clemons, jerry@extendedfamilyhelp.org or Tammy Pointer, tammy@extendedfamilyhelp.org. Together, we can change one life, because it’s never just one life.