Next Chapter: One Library's Journey to Help Reduce Recidivism in Their Community

In the Northwest corner of Georgia, a local jail and a small public library branch had a thought: What if local jail inmates could have access to the sort of educational resources and programs typically available in prisons? Could lessons in computer skills, job training and life skills lower the local recidivism rate?
In this program you will learn how the Cherokee Regional Library System used the Accelerating Promising Practices IMLS grant to fund the development of the Next Chapter Program, a life skills education program for inmates of the Dade County Jail, and how you can bring the program to your community for free.
We will discuss how the library first developed their partnership with the local jail, how the library harnessed existing resources, and local talent to curate a collection of learning modules that can be accessed free of charge by any library. Finally, we will cover the implementation of the program, best practices for following inmate progress, and how our library encouraged local inmates to become life-long library users.