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Re: Entry Summit
Breaking Down Invisible Bars
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Texas has the 5th highest incarceration rate and one of the largest prison populations in the nation, with women making up nearly a third of those incarcerated, a vast majority of whom were charged for nonviolent crimes. One in five of those women will end up in Harris County upon her release. According to a study by the Legal Action Center, all ex-offenders in Texas face over 32 different legal barriers upon reentry, ranging from employment policies to limitations on public assistance.
Women reentering society face additional challenges that are often overlooked including a lack of job skills, need for family housing, and difficulty finding employers offering positions conducive to childcare responsibilities. These challenges combined with a lack of resources and support put women with criminal records at higher risk of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction than their male counterparts.
This obvious need is why The Women's Home will be hosting a two day summit to show community leaders the faces of those struggling with reentry and connect women with the resources they need. The Re:Entry summit, funded in part by Houston Bar Foundation, will take place September 17th at United Way Houston, with a job and resource fair for women with criminal histories at South Main Baptist Church the next day. Partnering with local organizations, the summit will address issues including housing, job skills, the children our incarceration system leaves behind and research supported alternatives to the traditional prison system.
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Girls on the Run Supports our Residents
Some of the Women's Home's pint sized friends recently paid a warm and friendly visit to our residents at Jane Cizik Garden Place, our spring branch supportive housing community.
Dozens of girls ranging from the third to fifth grades from the nearby Treasure Forest Elementary School, delivered hygiene care packages after school one sunny afternoon day. It was a happy visit, and one that came after weeks of hard work and fundraising. The students are part of the Girls on the Run program, an after school program for girls ages 8 to 13. Their goal is to complete a 5k at the end of their school year. But part of the fun for these girls involves giving back. So the girls chose Jane Cizik Garden Place as their community outreach project.
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reNew Your Wardrobe and Donate to The Women's Home
Tickets for our 6th annual reNew & reDo fashion show and shopping event are now on sale! With our biggest shopping event of the year on the horizon we are calling all Houston's most fashionable men and women to clean out their couture closets for the cause.
Months before the show, we begin gathering the high fashion and designer clothing, shoes, handbags, and accessories for men and women from brands including Gucci, Prada, Dior, Chanel, and Michael Kors that will grace the racks and the runway in August. Couture comes from personal closets as well as boutique donations gathered from our friends and neighbors in the community.
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2015 WholeLife Luncheon
Late on the sunny morning of Friday June 5, 280 guests gathered at the Houstonian Hotel for our 2015 WholeLife Luncheon featuring author Carine McCandless. Emceed by
The Women's Home Advisory Board Member and Great Day Houston Host Deborah Duncan, the luncheon began with thanks to sponsors before recognizing our 2015 Laura Sampson Community Award Honorees. Recognized for their philanthropic dedication to their communities, our 2015 honorees were
Dr. Sippi Khurana,
Elaine Turner,
Alden Clark and the
Reverend Michael Gott and
The Women's Energy Network. The Women's Home
Executive Director Paula Paust then announced our
2015 WholeLifeŽ Award Winner, Bryson Blair.
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Spiritually: The Search Continues
Readers may remember we began our spiritual program The Courage To Search in the summer of 2014. The Courage to Search, which was featured in our Fall 2014 newsletter, is a seven week program residents of our Treatment and Transitional program can participate in after their first 90 days at The Women's Home. The program begins with a Meaning System Interview (MSI), developed by The Women's Home collaborator and
Vice President of the Institute for Spirituality and Health, Stuart Nelson, and his mentor, Dr. Ann Taves, which helps residents map their spiritual belief system at the start of the course and is done again midway through to mark their progress. The MSI is designed to allow open exploration for all belief systems, whether an individual is a devout member of a particular religion, a nondenominational theist, or a strict atheist. The course engages participants in exploring what spirituality is for them, how they see not only themselves but others on a deeper level.
The Courage to Search program has received such positive feedback from residents that The Home is developing a continuation of the program called The Search Continues. The Search Continues will pair residents who've completed The Courage to Search with their own trained spiritual companion to help them further their individual journey. Stuart Nelson is working with staff to develop The Search Continues with the help of community volunteer Mary Gracely, an ordained interfaith minister who first heard about The Women's Home when she was invited to deliver the invocation at our Women of Substance afternoon tea. Exploring opportunities to become involved Mary was invited to become a part of the trained volunteer team that organizes and develops our spiritual program.
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607 Westheimer
Houston, Texas 77006-3915
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