OUR MISSION
The Transformative In-Prison Workgroup (TPW) is on a mission to support meaningful programming for incarcerated individuals in California. We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of incarcerated individuals and believe that they should have access to healing and transformative programs. That is why we’re building a statewide collective voice for high quality in-prison programs.
The TPW is a statewide group of individuals and organizations that believe in the transformative and healing power of in-prison programs. We started the TPW because we believe that we are more powerful together than in isolation. In-prison program providers face common challenges including isolation, burn-out, resource scarcity, barriers to facility access, and lack of representation in decision-making meetings. Individuals who have been incarcerated and families affected by incarceration face similar challenges, which create barriers to fully engaging in and leading these programs. |
Together, we know we can break isolation, share ideas, and build political power to have statewide influence. We are organizing a statewide force in support of healing and transformative in-prison programming to have the following impacts:
● Increase access to transformative and healing in-prison programs
● Increase access for individuals who have been incarcerated to return to prisons to provide programs
● Increase sustainable funding for in-prison programs
● Create a learning community to share ideas, best practices, and workshop challenges
● Generate a new humanizing public narrative about the importance of in-prison programs
● Conduct collective research on the benefits of in-prison programs
● Increase access to transformative and healing in-prison programs
● Increase access for individuals who have been incarcerated to return to prisons to provide programs
● Increase sustainable funding for in-prison programs
● Create a learning community to share ideas, best practices, and workshop challenges
● Generate a new humanizing public narrative about the importance of in-prison programs
● Conduct collective research on the benefits of in-prison programs