Founded in 1984, Metropolitan Community Services (MCS) has been serving vulnerable populations in our communities, including formerly incarcerated individuals, for nearly 35 years. In 2008, Teaching Opportunity Unity by Connecting Hearts (T.O.U.C.H.), was founded with a focus on building a peer-to-peer mentoring culture and workforce development programming. MCS and T.O.U.C.H. combined forces, to form what is commonly known as MCS-T.O.U.C.H. Now the agency serves incarcerated men and women who are soon-to-be-released, formerly incarcerated men and women, and other at-risk populations 18 years of age and older.
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(The Numbers):
(The Curriculum):
The Peer to Peer Mentoring Curriculum, i.e. “THINK” is State of Ohio Re-Entry approved. In 2010 one of most unique and creative pre and post-release programming methodologies, named SOLUTIONS, was piloted in a single ODRC prison. SOLUTIONS utilizes web-conferencing to connect pre- and post-release mentees in real time. SOLUTIONS offers – group peer-to-peer mentoring sessions addressing thinking errors associated with real-life reentry challenges from the offender perspective and conducted by trained facilitators (mostly formerly incarcerated) using the evidence-based THINK curriculum. To date SOLUTIONS has expanded to 5 additional institutions and is one of only a few pre-release efforts in the State of Ohio which has survived the rigorous re-entry approval testing and status, authorized by ODRC. The THINK curriculum is being utilized as a Peer to Peer resource in area’s as far away as South Africa.
(The Growth):
Over the 11 years, MCS-T.O.U.C.H. has demonstrated seismic growth from 4 dedicated Volunteers to currently over 17 paid staff and contractors. The Agency which started as an idea has now matured to a real-full-wraparound-support-service agency, helping the community by supporting those soon to be released from incarceration and the formerly incarcerated on their path to becoming successful tax paying citizens.
(The Statistics):
Since 2012, TOUCH has operated SOLUTIONS. Clients begin groups while incarcerated & continue post-release. A 2014 comprehensive internal recidivism report shows;