Five Keys and Insight Prison Project Are Partnering to Expand Trauma-Informed Learning for Inmates
Having spent nearly 40 years pioneering ways to change lives through trauma-informed education in correctional facilities across California, Five Keys recently partnered with the Insight Prison Project to leverage both organizations’ experience and enhance ways to help inmates come out of prison better than when they entered.
“Now more than ever we need to form partnerships to pool resources in this pandemic,” said Steve Good, executive
director for Five Keys.
“We are excited to merge with the Insight Prison Project to expand our reach and resources that help transform the lives of inmates in California and beyond. Both of our organizations have great experience providing educational programs that build trust, acknowledge each person’s dignity and empower individuals to take advantage of opportunities that can change the trajectory of their lives — and help them to engage differently with their worlds.”
Through the partnership, the Insight Prison Project will run under the umbrella of Five Keys, which began in 2003 in the San Francisco County Jail as the first charter school for incarcerated adults in the country. Its pioneering programs serve more than 4,000 people a day and have awarded more than 2,800 high school diplomas or GED equivalents. It is touted for shutting the revolving door of inmates going in and out of jail.
Insight Prison Project, based in San Rafael, offers an innovative restorative justice program, the Victim Offender Education Group, which focuses on transformational re-education. It serves 300 incarcerated persons in California, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. It will continue to operate and grow its transformational programs for prisoners and parolees, which are supported by crime victims and community volunteers.
“This is a perfect fit for both organizations who work to prepare people to come home and contribute to society by leading productive lives that cause no harm to others or themselves,”
said Leonard Rubio, executive director of the Insight Prison Project.
Since 1997, the Insight Prison Project has been dedicated to reducing recidivism rates and improving public safety by conducting highly effective in-prison rehabilitation programs that provide prisoners with the tools and life skills necessary to create durable change. www.InsightPrisonProject.org.
