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Life Skills

Life Skills provides success development and short-term, employer driven vocational training for inmates.

Program Locations

This project is offered to inmates at Clarinda, Fort Dodge, Mitchellville, Mt. Pleasant, Newton, and North Central Correctional Facilities. It is a combination of the Iowa Department of Corrections' Going Home Re-Entry project and ¼ø»ÆÊ¦app's Training Academy-Career Link.

Key Components

  1. Development of individual success plans utilizing a wraparound process
  2. Life Skills curriculum delivered through Training Academy-KEYS-Career Link modules
  3. Vocational training provided by ¼ø»ÆÊ¦app Continuing Education

Project Goals

  1. To enable offenders to successfully reenter the community.
  2. To allow offenders to assume personal responsibility and work toward self-sufficiency.
  3. To increase offenders' financial responsibility.
  4. To increase the level of educational achievement for eligible incarcerated offenders.
  5. To enable offenders to obtain and retain long term employment.

Primary Collaborators

  • Central City Community Development
  • Department of Corrections
  • Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning
  • Fifth Judicial District DCS
  • Institute of Social and Economic Development

Life Skills Link to Success Overview

The Life Skills modules and Vocational training provides success development and short-term, employer driven vocational training designed to meet individuals where they are currently and help them move along a career ladder for advancement to higher paying positions. Both will be offered 4 times per year on a 12-week training cycle at the 3 correctional facilities.

Training Academy-KEYS-Career Link training will be for 3 hours per day, 5 days per week. Offenders will also spend 3 hours per day during these 12 weeks in an Office Skills training class. This is a total of 6 hours per day in the classroom for a period of 12 weeks.

The Office Skills curriculum provides a basic understanding of the components in the Office 2000 software series: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. These components will provide the offenders with a basic literacy in the most frequently used computer applications.

Assessment-Training Academy-KEYS-Career Link Timeline

  • Week 1: Orientation, Assessment, and Career Development Plan
  • Weeks 2-6: Training Academy: Life Skills and Job Readiness Preparation
  • Weeks 7-9: KEYS: Keys Essential to Your Success
  • Weeks 10-11: Career Link: Getting, Keeping, and Advancing on the Job
  • Week 12: Post Assessment

Continuing Education Vocational-Technical Training Timeline

¼ø»ÆÊ¦app Continuing Education and the Project Coordinator will work with the institutions and employers to research and develop applicable on-site technical training. The goal of this phase of the project is to ensure that offenders are trained in a trade that will allow them to obtain and retain employment that pays a livable wage.