The Outreach Team Summary

In working through this goal of lowering recidivism and new offenders, we work to make the community aware of crime and victimization and ways to avoid that. Simultaneously, we work as community liaisons bridging the gap from community members to the programs that work to serve them. In working with the outreach team we constantly go on visits to different types of organization as well as interact with those that we refer people to. The Outreach Team uses five outlets to help community members most frequently which include, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Peer 2 Peer, the “SURE” groups, Interrupters, and then the Outreach program.

To start with, St. Joseph Mercy hospital works with us to do many things. The primary cause of its program to help community members in my experience as an intern was to educate. They serve to educate the community about the health services that are available for people who otherwise would be unable to obtain

This group educates community members of all ages to become community leaders and engagers known as interrupters with the idea of interrupting crime and violence in the neighborhoods. This group goes door-to-door to provide information and insight on activities and outlets to keep the neighborhoods youth out of trouble. The main point it to give a positive alternative to situations that lead to violence.

The last program is the outreach team itself. One of the most interesting programs that I noticed was the outreach team. The outreach team was filled with people who had past records and had been through the system. It is a very unique system that helps an offender and the Sherriff’s Department both get integrated where they want to be. In the case of the Sherriff’s department the goal is to get gain the sense of trust that they are lacking in the community and for the outreach worker it is a way of reintegrating themselves back into a legal job