RESTORE HOPE

      Restore Hope, a Success Story

Restore Hope is an organization that is tackling two serious problems in our state –incarceration and foster care. To do so, they are focusing on reducing the repeat incarceration rate in our state’s prisons and the resulting placement of children into foster care. This organization is helping communities organize a collaborative intervention of government agencies, nonprofits, and local businesses. The coalition directly addresses the problems justice-involved families face upon being released from prison, having a child welfare case opened, or even being unable to pay a misdemeanor traffic ticket. In the past the men and women in these situations were unable to do simple things such as get a Driver’s License or reliable transportation to keep steady employment.

Paul Chapman, executive director of Restore Hope Arkansas, said his organization was started by Gov. Asa Hutchinson after he took office in 2015. The Restore Hope website states the purpose was to bridge a gap between government services and communities struggling to reduce the incarceration rate, facilitate a successful re-entry from incarceration to freedom, and reduce how many children are entering Arkansas' foster care system. Chapman’s overview of the program gives an outline of how Restore Hope works: "What we believe and what the research shows is that the types of problems that we all gathered here today to discuss are so complex, that not one organization, governmental or non-governmental, can actually make the kinds of changes that we all hope to make that, because we all operate in silos to our authorities, whatever they may be like without really any mechanisms to partner together, we have this execution gap," Chapman said at the Feb. 11 meeting in Crawford County. Restore Hope tackles these situations in a hand-on approach to solve the problems faced by newly released prisoners.

One of the primary reasons of prison population growth is the high number of repeat offenders, who for a variety of reasons return to prison. The Restore Hope program is targeted to provide assistance to released prisoners to keep them from being sent back to prison for breaking probation or committing other crimes. Many of the crimes or reasons for breaking probation are because these men and women don’t have access to the resources we have available. Restore Hope works to help them acquire what these individual need in order to live a meaningful life outside of prison.

After extensive planning, Restore Hope developed programs to train the recently released prisoners a trade and help them get a job. However, a closer look at the needs of these men and women revealed that a big factor after getting training and hired was having a driver’s license. By not having a car to drive to work was such a contributing factor, that just solving it made a huge difference in the lives of these men and women ability to live a normal productive life. Restore Hope volunteers work directly with these men and women to overcome problems such as these.

One of the initial goals of Restore Hope started with a 100 Families Initiative that is to preserve or reunite families. The various programs help families move "from crisis to career" using existing community resources, according to a page on the website for Restore Hope Arkansas. This is accomplished by engaging community partners, training agencies on a collaborative case management system, and recruiting case managers to respond when a family is in crisis. Restore Hope provides the coordination and infrastructure in which the community carries out the work of the initiative.

Executive Director Chapmen comments, "As we were putting people in jail and in prison for infractions, a lot of them were for parole and probation technical violations. So, it wasn't for a new crime or new convictions. It was the inability to meet the demands of the supervision that the individuals were already on."

That was the challenge that was met head-on by the 100 Family Program.

Two people who have benefited from the services provided by the 100 Families Initiative are Fort Smith residents Amanda Myer and her husband, Patrick, who joined the program last July. Beforehand, their two children had been taken by the state Department of Human Services after the couple were arrested and failed drug tests. Amanda Myer said after she and Patrick got out of jail the next day, a department caseworker put her in touch with Ms. Phillips, and the Restore Hope hands-on approach began.

"We started the DHS requirements [through the initiative], such as ... parenting classes and a psych evaluation, and drug and alcohol therapy," Myer said. "But we just kind of felt like we needed some more support from the community." At the time, Myer said Patrick was in school while she was working part time. Having just one source of income caused the pair to fall behind on some of their bills. However, Phillips helped them apply for rental assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and get utility help.

"We kept meeting with her, and we would go to her even if we just needed somebody to talk to, which happened a lot," Myer said. "When we started getting home visits, we needed a crib for our 2-year-old because before she had always just slept with us and that was one of the requirements that DHS had, so she had someone from the Care Portal that works with 100 Families bring us a crib that day to our house. They delivered it to us and everything."

Myer said their children returned in a trial home placement in September, and they regained custody Dec. 12. She and Patrick also got married on Aug. 23, two days before their first unsupervised visit with their children. In addition, Patrick completed his education and found work as a refrigeration technician. She believes that, without Restore Hope’s 100 Families Program, their situation could have turned out differently.

 "It's hard to go through this process on your own, so having that support is really helpful," Myer said. "And it's something that I'd really like to see other areas of Arkansas and the country take on because ... there's a lot of judgment automatically when you have a DHS case open, and to get that kind of support and have people that want to help you and want to fix it and don't just say, 'Well, you got your kids taken,' I think that's really crucial in improving everybody.”

By utilizing all three of the Restore Hope proven solutions, there has been an unprecedented success in Sebastian County. In two years, the number of children in foster care has decreased by 32%, the inmate population by 19%. These efforts are impacting an entire community.

In 2019 Restore Hope had direct contact with over 3,000 lives. That number represents a huge commitment by Restore Hope caseworkers and volunteers who have devoted untold hours to be a helping hand…when no one else was there to help.

            Restore Hope is living up to its name.