In step 2 you identified community partners and collaborators who have a direct or indirect role transitioning people from jail to the community. It is now time to begin a dialogue by reaching out to government and nongovernment agencies and community organizations to determine their interest in being part of a TJC partnership.

The following steps will help you maximize the chance that they say “yes.” First, do your homework before you pick up the phone. Print a checklist for preparing to reach out to potential partners. Remember your goal is to develop a long-term relationship built on trust and respect. This takes time, so don't rush it.

Phrases you might want to use during your conversation:

• Would you like to build a safer community by partnering with us?

• We can't afford to do business the way we have been doing it.

• We need a coordinated effort to solve the problem. We can't do it alone.

• We need to pool our resources in a more strategic way.

• We need to pool resources and coordinate our efforts.

• Partnering will improve outcomes for both incarcerated people and our organizations.

Next, set up the first communication. Click here for more details.

Remember that you may need a follow-up conversation by phone or e-mail before you think they are ready to commit to the TJC process.

Finally, invite them to a meeting:

• Tell them you are organizing a reentry implementation committee and would like them to be a part of it.

• Determine what is a good day and time for them to meet.

• Find a neutral location that is convenient for everyone.

• If possible, provide food for the first meeting.

• Use free online scheduling and conference web sites such as Doodle and FreeConference to help find a date on which everyone can agree.

Step 4: Convene the partnering agencies

The first goal, after you have earned their initial support, is to bring the multiple stakeholders together, preferably over breakfast or lunch, to brainstorm about transition challenges in your community and how to develop an oversight reentry committee to oversee and guide the TJC process.

The length and content of the agenda will depend on how much time you have at the initial meeting. The first TJC meetings in Lawrence, Kansas, and Denver, Colorado, each lasted two days, whereas other communities scheduled an hour for the first meeting.

Here is how to begin:

1. Welcome everyone to the meeting and briefly introduce yourself.

2. Pass out a printed agenda, which you e-mailed to participants in advance.
   Click here - Agenda Template

3. Explain why they are here: goals and organization of the TJC meeting.

4. Use an icebreaker to help the participants get to know each other and feel more comfortable.
   Click here - Icebreaker examples

5. Discuss what jail transition looks like in your community.

6. Introduce the TJC model.
   Click here – TJC model

7. Discuss what their expectations are for the meeting.

8. Discuss what issues they would like to address during the meeting.

9. Get specific: ask them to begin developing the mission and vision statement or discuss the barriers they see with transitioning people from the jail to the community.
   Mission statement example: 
   Mission Statement, Douglas County, KS
   The Douglas County Corrections Division mission is to provide safe, secure, humane, and legal treatment for all inmates through direct supervision management concepts while fostering a safe and successful transition through interventions, programs, and services from the facility into our community. 

10. Ask the participants if they can meet once a month until there is a consensus on how a coordinated and collaborative reentry strategy can be accomplished in their community.

11. Discuss the importance of reentry implementation committees and work groups.

12. Ask for volunteers for each committee.

13. Before the meeting adjourns, take the time to ask the partners to help you identify key roles, knowledge, and skills not represented in the current partner group. Ask them to name additional partners to bring in the missing elements identified. You will want to update your partner list every six months as implementation progresses.

14. Make sure to finish with concrete next steps, people assigned to accomplish them, or a next meeting scheduled. It's important for new partners to leave with a sense that they have accomplished something and to have a clear understanding of how and when the work they've begun will continue.

Step 5: Identify shared goals, principles, and outcomes of interest

“It’s very hard to get things accomplished if you haven’t worked on structure and getting people on board before you   proceed.” ---TJC stakeholder

In the beginning, developing shared goals, principles, and outcomes of interest will be the main work of the reentry implementation committee. Start by creating a timeline of what needs to be accomplished.

Review the TJC Implementation Roadmap for a to-do list to help get you started:

Drawing a stakeholder grid is an excellent exercise to identify local leaders, their relationship to the system, their interest, their power to affect system actions, and their alignment with the TJC model. In essence, you are teaching key stakeholders how to have this discussion at the system level while gauging interest or authority to implement or block change.

Your goal is to engage stakeholders through a variety of exercises and actions outlined in previous sections and then identify the level of power and interest each organization and agency has in transitioning people from jail to the community. This is a useful exercise to assist in systems-level discussions and to understand various influential leaders who exist within your system.  

Below is an example of a stakeholder grid. We have listed different stakeholders below. Think where each one of them fits in your jurisdiction.

Stakeholder Power/Interest/Influence Grid

There are four squares in a stakeholder grid:

1. Keep Satisfied: Stakeholders who fall within this square are those who have a lot of power to influence criminal justice system practice or change, but have little interest in changing anything.

2. Manage Closely: Stakeholders who fall within this square are those who have a lot of power to influence criminal justice system practice or change and have a lot of interest in or desire to change current criminal justice practice to obtain improved outcomes.

3. Monitor: Stakeholders who fall within this square are those who have little to no power to influence criminal justice system practice or change and little to no interest in changing anything.

4. Keep Informed: Stakeholders who fall within this square are those who have little to no power to influence criminal justice system practice or change; but have a lot of interest in or desire to change current criminal justice practice to obtain improved outcomes.

By doing this exercise in a group setting, one is able to identify the organizations that have a high interest and power in the TJC model and learn what motivates them, while also identifying those organizations with low interest. It is extremely important to note that no stakeholder should be excluded from participating in TJC implementation activities because of their levels of interest or power.

The purpose of this exercise is to understand the different motivators for and against change within your system and to allocate resources and make determinations relative to communication and engagement strategies. Accordingly, dialogue should ensue about what it takes to engage people within the TJC effort, from empowering the low-interest and low-power organizations to understanding and managing differences that high-power stakeholders have with the TJC approach.

Drawing a Stakeholder Grid

First, ask your group to rate each of the stakeholders by their effect on transitioning people from jail to the community on a scale of 1 (least) to 10 for the following:

• Power/Influence

• Interest

Based upon these ratings, plot each of the stakeholders on the Stakeholder Power/Interest/Influence Grid. Bryson (2003) lays out  seven points of constructing a Stakeholder Grid:²

Whole team:

• “Tape four flip chart sheets to a wall to form a single surface two sheets high and two sheets wide.

•  Draw the two axes on the surface using a marking pen. The vertical axis is labeled interest, from low to high; while the horizontal axis is labeled power, from low to high.

• Planning group members brainstorm the names of stakeholders by writing the names of different stakeholders as they come to mind on a 1?×1-1/2? self-adhesive label, one stakeholder per label.

• Guided by the deliberations and judgments of the planning group members, a facilitator should place each label in the appropriate spot on the grid.

• Labels should be collected in a round-robin fashion, one label per group member, until all labels(other than duplicates) are placed on the grid or eliminated for some reason.

• Labels should be moved around until all group members are satisfied with the relative location of each stakeholder on the grid.

• The group should discuss the implications of the resulting stakeholder placements.”

Step 6: Write a mission and vision statement

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”³

This Japanese proverb sums up the importance of taking the time to develop a mission and vision statement. The mission and vision statement needs to appeal to all of your constituents.

“Once well-intentioned system stakeholders take the time to examine their differences and similarities relative to local criminal justice practice and outcomes, they invariably realize that they all have in common one overarching desire: to do things as efficiently and effectively as possible to realize best outcomes and effects on long-term public safety. When such a realization occurs and a shared mission is developed, the positive effect that an aligned group of stakeholders can have on criminal justice outcomes, and thus public safety, is enormous.” 

Gary Christensen, Former Chair
Dutchess County Criminal Justice Council
Dutchess County, NY

Vision Statement

Begin by drafting a vision statement. As you recall, the Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture module covered creating a vision for your organization. If needed, go back to this module and review Section 3: Creating a Vision. The vision statement for your collaborative structure should focus on the broad goals of the reentry implementation committee and clearly explain the following:

• Defining the reentry committee.

• The guiding philosophy behind the council's formation.

• Goals of the of the reentry committee.

• Value the reentry committee adds to the community.

• Outcomes of a successful reentry committee.

Ask yourself the following questions when developing the vision statement:

• Which offenders are your highest priority?

• What programs, services, and support do you want to provide to them?

• Where does reentry take place and for what duration?

• Who are the partners in the community—including government agencies, nonprofits, and the business community—that could play a helpful role in your reentry strategy?

• How will you measure your success?

Dutchess County, New York's Criminal Justice Council Vision Statement: 
“The Criminal Justice Council has become a system where the overriding concern is for the fair, equitable, cost-effective and efficient administration of justice for the immediate and long term; preventive programming is being developed to minimize entry and re-entry into the criminal justice system; planning is system based with goals and outcomes; decisions are grounded in information, research and facts, not politics; all Criminal Justice Council members are committed to actively work together to achieve this goal.”

Click here for the complete operational overview of the Dutchess County, New York, Criminal Justice Council.

Mission Statement

The reentry implementation committee's mission statement is more concise and concrete than the vision statement. In a paragraph you will want to

• State the purpose for developing a reentry committee.

• Describe what the reentry committee plans to achieve.

• Explain the reentry committee’s commitment to transitioning people from jail to the community in the most effective and efficient manner.

• Describe the commitment to evidence-based policy and practice and how this commitment will result in the continual improvement of criminal justice practice.   

Remember that long-term public safety is always the main priority, so a good mission statement not only states the purpose, but also addresses how it can be accomplished. For example, reduce recidivism by preparing inmates to make a successful transition back to the community.

Kent County, Michigan, Community Reentry Coordinating Council's Mission Statement: 
“To promote public safety by assembling a group of collaborators representing local agencies and entities who will work to identify, reduce or eliminate the barriers to successful community reentry for those citizens who were formerly incarcerated.”

Listed below are questions to think about:

What is the reentry implementation committee's mission?

• Protect the public

• Efficiency and cost-effectiveness

• Rehabilitation

• Support successful transition to the community

• Provide good in-jail treatment programs that offer ties or continuity with community based resources

• Facilitate the linkage of offenders to services

• Collaboration and cooperation with partnering agencies

How does the reentry implementation committee plan to operationalize its mission?

• Intake and assessment

• Classification and housing assignment

• Transition plans for high-risk populations

• Treatment programs as appropriate

• Continuity in community

Step 7: Document partner agencies' resources and gaps

One of the first priorities of the reentry implementation committee is to identify the present resources (financial, human, and technical) in place to support the TJC model. You need a picture of how people move through the jail, from intake to discharge, and the transition back to the community. In the next module, Data-Driven Understanding of Local Reentry, we discuss in depth how this is accomplished.

Step 8: Develop common performance measures

The purpose this step is to briefly describe to you common performance measurements that will help the reentry implementation committee maintain accountability for its goals. For a more comprehensive discussion see the Self-Evaluation and Sustainability module.

Performance measures serve many purposes. They

• Determine if the vision and mission are being achieved;

• Determine the fidelity and efficacy of the strategies;

• Improve planning;

• Identify gaps in service or action;

• Improve communication with partnering agencies, funders, and the public; and

• Determine if resources should be reallocated.

To begin the process, complete the following six steps:

1. Identify goals and objectives consistent with the mission and vision statements.

2. Identify strategies, activities, or programs necessary to reach your goals and objectives.

3. Determine the short-term results or outcomes you want from each strategy, activity, or program.

4. Determine the intermediate results or outcomes you want from each strategy, activity, or program.

5. Determine the long-term results or outcomes you want from each strategy, activity, or program.

6. Identify ways to measure each result or outcome (performance measures).

Now evaluate the quality of your performance measures:

• Does each performance measure relate to the associated mission, goal, and objective?

• Is each performance measure important to the executive-level reentry council and the reentry implementation committee?

• Is it possible to collect accurate and reliable data for each performance measure?

• Taken together, do the performance measures accurately reflect the key results of the strategy, activity, or program?

• Is there more than one performance measure for each goal or objective?

For more information and examples from the field

1. Carter, Madeline. 2005. Collaboration: A Training Curriculum to Enhance the Effectiveness of Criminal Justice Teams: Instructional Manual, This curriculum is designed by the National Resource Center on Collaboration in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems to assist multidisciplinary criminal justice teams in establishing or enhancing collaborative relationships.

2. The Council of State Governments Justice Center’s Reentry Policy Council Report focuses on planning a reentry initiative and is very detailed and helpful.

3. Missouri Reentry Process (MRP) Local Team Starter Kit. 2006. A great source to read before you develop and host your first reentry council meeting. This 23-page reentry council starter kit provides easy-to-use tools, ideas, and suggestions on facilitating your meetings and discussions. The appendix is particularly helpful, including such items as minutes and outcome templates and brainstorming tools.

4. Montero, Gabriel. 2007. Mapping the Universe of Reentry. The New York City Discharge Planning Collaboration. This report discusses how a group representing nearly 40 organizations with a stake in transitional planning came together to form the collaboration.

5. New York City Jail Reentry Project Organizational Survey. This survey can help your community gain a better understanding of the collaboration and coordination of organizations; what the positive and negative concerns may be; and what kinds of relationships work best.

6. Restoring Hope through Community Partnerships: The Real Deal in Crime Control, published by the American Probation and Parole Association, Lexington, Kentucky. This handbook is one of the best guides on developing community outreach, with many examples and templates.

TJC Learning Site Examples

1. Denver. Reentry Committee monthly progress report and agenda.

2. Douglas County, KS Sheriff’s Office  2010. Sample agenda  and minutes for small jurisdictions.

3. Douglas County, KS. A detailed list and description of TJC partner organizations.

4. Kent County, MI. TJC stakeholder contact information.

5. Kent County, MI. A detailed list and description of TJC partners, their resources and contact information.

6. San Diego, CA. The San Diego Reentry Roundtable overview. A detailed listing of the collaborative partners participating in the San Diego County, CA TJC initiative.