Centerforce has a 30-year history of helping incarcerated individuals and their loved ones — below are some programmatic highlights of our past work.
San Quentin State Prison Visitors’ Program (1972-2009)
Centerforce was instrumental in developing the first visitor’s center at San Quentin, known as the “Yellow House”, and in lobbying for the passage of legislation mandating that visitors’ centers be provided at all California state prisons. Centerforce operated the Visitor’s Center outside the gates of San Quentin State Prison from 1972 to 2009. The visitor center provides a comfortable place to sit and unwind, a clothing exchange, transportation, and supervised activities for children during visiting hours.
Transitional Case Management Program (2003-2009)
With funding from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), Centerforce provided transitional case management for men and women living with HIV returning to eight Bay Area counties from all 33 prisons throughout the state. TCMP case managers worked to firmly link parolees living with HIV with medical care, long-term case management, parole services, and other community-based services such as substance abuse treatment, housing, and employment assistance. The goal of this transitional case management program was for people who were formerly incarcerated and living with HIV in California to live healthier lives in the community.
Families Moving Forward (2002-2008)
The Families Moving Forward program provided intensive family reunification services with clients and their family members at the Marin County Jail, and as a result, the program helped to stabilize incarcerated parents and their families. Program participants developed and completed family reunification service plans, attended weekly parenting groups, and accessed community resource and support systems.
Positive Transitions (2006-2009)
The PosT Project was a collaborative research project between Centerforce, the UCSF Center for Aids Prevention Studies, and the UCSF School of Nursing. The research goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of two individual-level interventions, to reduce HIV risk behavior, improve access to post-release medical care, and improve access to HIV prevention services for men living with HIV leaving jail or prison settings. Findings will be used to further inform best practices, to support individuals living with HIV, to successfully change risk behaviors, and improve access to medical and social support services when transitioning back into the community.
Live, Love and Learn Project (2007-2009)
The Live, Love, & Learn (LLL) Project was a peer education program for women visiting loved ones at San Quentin State Prison. The program trained women visitors as peer health educators to provide information and support to other women visitors about a wide range of women’s health issues, including HIV. Program activities included outreach, weekly group meetings, health fairs, and one-to-one peer education. The goals of the LLL Project were to increase participants’ knowledge, skills, and intentions to protect themselves and their partners.
Health Marriage, Responsible Fatherhood
The HMRF project goal is to strengthen marriages and relationships of incarcerated men releasing from San Quentin State Prison.
The core element of the program includes a 12-week Back to Family (BTF) class inside SQSP that covers topics such as child development, parenting and co-parenting, stress and anger management, relationship building, and the impact of substance use, violence, and incarceration on children and families.
The program also provides Couples Enhancement Workshops (CEW) for men prior to their release, bringing the men together with their partners inside the visiting area to participate in a day-long facilitated relationship and communication-building workshop. CEW sessions provide partners the opportunity to deepen their communication skills and their commitment to their relationship in preparation for the man’s release from prison.
The program also provides case-management for men with their partners in preparation for and after reentry, to facilitate healthy reunification at reentry. The Family Reunification Case Management program reinforces progress made in BTF and CEW and provides general support for a broad spectrum of family needs during reentry.
Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant 90FR0004. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. These services are available to all persons regardless of race, gender, age, disability or religion.
Health Relationships
The goal of the Healthy Relationships program is to develop the participants’ confidence and sense of self-efficacy in their ability to disclose their HIV status to potential partners as well as family and friends.
This leads to preventing transmission, promoting responsible and healthy relationships, and reducing risky behaviors.
This Centerforce program is one of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s designated Effective Behavioral Interventions (EBI). The intervention uses contemporary film and media clips to promote discussion about disclosure of HIV status among a small group of HIV-infected individuals over a series of sessions.
Centerforce has adapted the intervention specifically for populations of men and women preparing to leave prison and reenter their communities.
Centerforce’s current grant sponsors the delivery of Healthy Relationships groups with men who are incarcerated at the California Medical Facility and San Quentin State Prison. HR is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Prevention Program Branch.