Utah Prisoner Advocate Network
UPAN | A nonprofit community advocacy group supporting the families of Utah inmates.
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FOCUS Meeting – March 2016
March 7, 2016 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm MST
Free
Please Attend the Next FOCUS Meeting
As of January 2016, there are some changes to the bi-monthly FOCUS meeting. Steve Turley, Director of Special Projects, will no longer be facilitating these meetings. This was disheartening to hear, as Steve has been a calm anchor in sometimes emotional meetings, and we will miss him. We do understand that he has bigger assignments on the table with the new Utah State Prison being planned. UPAN directors are pleased that Brooke Adams, the Public Information Officer for the UDC will be taking over the duties of hosting FOCUS meetings. Brooke has a history of working to assist UPAN with various issues. Brooke is already organizing the upcoming meetings. She is arranging to host the group in a larger conference room within the Adult Probation and Parole Region 3 office located at 36 West Fremont Ave. (1100 South) in Salt Lake City. The meeting time will remain 6 – 8 p.m.
Use of a larger meeting room will require all attendees to be escorted back past the reception area to reach it so it is important that we be as punctual as possible!
Transition from Prison to Parole
We are interested and excited to attend the March meeting because the topic is on the Transition Initiatives within the UDC. Parole success is an interest of UPAN that often gets pushed to the back burner, especially with all the focus on a new prison, criminal justice reform, and other crises as they arise. We have talked about it over the past two years. Under the administration of Rollin Cook, and through a lot of work and organization within UDC in this area over the last year, there are some programs now in place within the system to facilitate the success of individuals when they transition out of prison and into the community. There will be four presenters at the FOCUS meeting and the agenda is:
- Transition Agents: Who are they and what are they doing to assist as people leave incarceration?
- The Family Psychology Program: What is it and how is it bringing inmates, their family members and children together inside the prison? (UPAN believes this is limited to women)
- Transition Mentoring: What is the transition mentoring program, who is involved, and how is it working?
- The LIFE Program: What is it and how is it helping inmates and their families prepare for reunification? This has been piloted at CUCF and will likely be introduced in 2016 at the Utah State Prison in Draper.
Each presentation will take about 15 to 20 minutes, leaving plenty of time for questions and follow up. They will present a slide show of these programs in action for us to see.
We ENCOURAGE everyone in attendance to come prepared to FOCUS on the presentations and topic so that we can get the most out of it. If there are other topics you would like to see covered in future meetings, please contact Brooke Adams at: [email protected].
About FOCUS
FOCUS meetings are held every other month on the first Monday of the month. The Utah Department of Corrections invites interested community members to attend a discussion forum at the Region 3 Adult Probation & Parole office in Salt Lake City.
Discussion topics are pre-determined to ensure the most knowledgeable presenters are on hand. Past topics have included the Drug Offender Reform Act (DORA), a presentation by the Utah Board of Pardons & Parole, an overview of Adult Probation & Parole’s Northern Utah office, and an introduction to new wardens.
More information: Contact Brooke Adams, Public Information Officer, at [email protected] or 801-545-5536.
PLEASE NOTE: In addition to FOCUS, the department has set up numerous ways for the public to interact with us on a daily, ongoing basis — rather than wait months for another quarterly meeting. These include phone calls, in-person meetings, e-mails, this website (Ask A Question forum via UDC homepage) as well as social media and UDC Press Releases. Please see the home page for social media links and a “Contact Us” link with useful telephone numbers.
