Panel Paper:
Improving Reentry Program Strategies and Outcomes
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Plaza Building: Lobby Level, Director's Row E (Sheraton Denver Downtown)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Studies of wrap-around reentry programs often yield mixed results. Yet, nearly two decades of research point to several effective practices that could strengthen holistic reentry programs outcomes; this same body of research suggests reentry evaluations themselves could be enhanced by adopting additional measures of success, assessing implementation, and examining causal pathways.
This paper distills four key lessons learned from a review of extant reentry research and offers actionable recommendations for both program and evaluation design:
- First, the inconclusive evidence is, in part, a function of the holistic nature of the intervention: it is difficult to isolate what components of wrap-around reentry services work evaluatively and few studies, if any, have sought to do so.
- Second, much of what we think we know about what works—including evaluations of holistic reentry programs—are bereft of fidelity assessments; indeed, few reentry evaluations examine whether the program was implemented and operating as intended or identify factors likely to impede or facilitate program performance and outcomes.
- Third, reentry is a catch-all term that implies a single model yet, as the research points out, reentry programs vary in meaningful ways prompting important questions about the basis for comparison; and, large-scale reentry program evaluations are ostensibly evaluating a funding stream as opposed to a single program model.
- Fourth, reentry programs that are delivered with fidelity tend to yield their intended impacts.
