Services

How We Help through our Re-entry Initiatives

Helping Ourselves To Transform (HOTT) provides professional services for returning citizens that reduce recidivism and focuses on core values and mental health. We follow the guidelines and recommendations of SAMHSA- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This collaborative relationship is strength-based and iterative, in that, we take our charges through step-by-step phases of successful community reintegration. We assist our charges by connecting them with available resources and helping to negotiate for their new role in society. We work to restore the civil/human rights of the formerly incarcerated and those affected by violence through organizing and mobilizing individuals to become advocates for social changes and personal development.

Some of the services we provide at HOTT are:

Case Management

At HOTT, we have a collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, care coordination, evaluation, and advocacy for options and services to meet the needs of returning citizens through communication and available resources to promote safety, quality of care by sending them to the right organization that will fit their tailored individual needs that are not offered at HOTT. The case manager will keep detailed notes and track with follow up with male and female returning citizens to ensure their needs are being met. Our Curriculum and Assessment Development is by SAMHSA.

Trauma informed group therapy
One on one and family advocacy
Substance abuse support
Workforce development and readiness
Stable employment and placement with our many partners
Family reunification
Resume writing
Basic technology training
Peer support groups
Mediation

Employment Training with Job Placement

We offer computer and IT training that is designed to increase technical skills, knowledge, efficiency, and value creation. We also offer job training that will help returning citizens to succeed and feel good in a job. These training skills become a way of life and increases the needed skill set and helps in the development of an employee as well as overall growth of decreasing the recidivism rate. To that end, we offer job placement with different organizations and unions that we are partnered with and prepared to hire the right person that comes through HOTT’s program.

Financial Literacy

We offer empowerment through Financial literacy education. This service brings the skills and knowledge required to make informed decisions to manage one’s finances. We help male and female returning citizens to process and focus on personal finance by primarily providing information and opportunities to increase financial literacy and by ensuring access to appropriate financial services. Financial empowerment strategies can be particularly impactful and help create a better model of financial behaviors or provide new knowledge to transfer and support around managing finances correctly.

Business creation and entrepreneur development
Financial education & credit counseling
Formulating SMART goals
Book publishing and consulting

Parole Preparation Support

When male and female returning citizens discover in their first parole hearing that no one in the penal system will prepare them for what’s to come, they can become overwhelmed, depressed and desperate. They naively assume that the system will have their best interest, but it doesn’t. We prepare and support our charges through this process and make sure they have everything they will need to highlight their best change in order to come home. They will have a lot of reasons to not guarantee parole but we try the best we can to make them see people as human and not simply a number who found themselves in this situation. This is why we do our best to make sure our clients are prepared in this penal system of the parole process. Each person’s situation is different.

Post-conviction

Some of us are not attorneys but we assist with supporting the male and female returning citizens with post-conviction relief. We help get a public defender to assist with bringing the case back to court with new evidence and other things that could help to get a new trial or a new consideration for release. We have a good relationship with the Baltimore Public Defender’s office that handles Maryland’s Post-conviction in a lot of cases. We also have great relationships with Attorneys in the DMV as well. We also offer participatory defense.

Advocacy

Legislation and policy to address:

Justice reform
Prison reform
Re-entry Initiatives
Child welfare reform
Stopping human trafficking
Islamic Rights
BOP Remedies
Social Justice
Human Rights
Civic Involvement
Environment and Climate Change

Peer-to-Peer Counseling

A special mentorship program for peers by peers. It includes people going through the same issues in life, looking for guidance from their peers, or looking to learn from others. Facilitated by peer counselors, peer counseling occurs when people share knowledge, experience, emotional support, practical or social help with one another.

Participatory Defense

A community organizing model for people facing charges, their families, and communities to impact the outcomes of cases and transform the landscape of power in the court system.

Youth Diversion Program

We are partnered with the US Attorney for the District of Maryland to help create and implement our diversion program. Our program is a two prong approach where we focus on preventative measures to avoid incarceration as well as assisting to reduce recidivism rates. Transitioning from adolescence to adulthood has challenges. Our volunteer facilitators and our peer-to-peer youth volunteers at HOTT take a hands-on approach focused on self-esteem building activities, conflict resolution, civics, social engagement, entrepreneurship, job readiness, and financial literacy. We use SAMHSA provided resources as our go to guide for mental health activities, and our volunteers have re-world experiences and are our biggest asset working in the community that they belong to.

Thank YOu for Your Support

Most of the people in our programs leave prison with nothing but the clothing on their back and are expected to succeed. Our re-entry initiative is designed to ease the transition back into society by providing the small things like hygiene and travel that matter most:

toiletries,
undergarments
clothing for interviews
metro cards
UBER and LYFT cards
groceries, and more.

As members of the greater community, we have an obligation to address the causes that lead to crimes and to prevent future offenses from occurring.

Thank you for your donations!

Services

How We Help through our Re-entry Initiatives

Thank YOu for Your Support

Get in touch - we are ready to help!