WOMEN EMPOWERED TO PROSPER RESOURCE CENTER

Women Empowered to Prosper Resource Center (WEP) was founded in 2002 as a 501 (c) (3) in Newark, New Jersey. The initial objective of WEP was to aid the women of Greater Newark who had been displaced in life by immense challenges and were in crisis due to poverty, incarceration, low literacy, and domestic violence. The women's needs included emergency/transitional housing, counseling, education, career development, food, and clothing. WEP provided in-house services and utilized collaborative partnerships in delivering community-based resources to empower the women to become self-sufficient and stabilized. Among the women using WEP services were females who had been released from incarceration. WEP intentionally focused on "incarceration" as a contributing outcome of poverty and, through its Women's Reentry Program, started three collaborative community engagement projects: 1) The Female Offender Reentry Group Effort (FORGE), 2) Rites of Passage Program, and 3) Emergency/Transitional Housing for formerly incarcerated women.

The number of women on parole in New Jersey statewide in 2004 was approximately 1,200. Many of these women needed housing referrals, spiritual empowerment, employment, and other services to assist them with their transition back into society. Therefore, in 2004 WEP solidified a collaborative partnership with University Bible Center Church and the New Jersey State Parole Board (NJSPB) to help women on parole adjust to community supervision and reduce their recidivism.

The NJSPB, through its pilot project FORGE (Female Offender Reentry Group Effort), developed by WEP's founder Angela Marshall and funded by the Nicholson Foundation, comprised of 1) a specific caseload consisting of all females returning to Essex County and on parole within the local district office, and 2) the establishment of a Community Resource Center for women in partnership with a community stakeholder. On this caseload, the officer utilized a supervision tool known as the Parole Accountability Conference Team (PACT). WEP designed workshops for NJSPB and provided other supportive wraparound services to enhance their PACT meetings by ensuring gender-specific meeting topics addressing challenges facing women on parole, thus creating the first Women's PACT for NJSPB.

For this celebration, the community came together with representatives of the Newark City government, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, Essex County College, and many others to welcome the woman back into the community. In addition, a community completion ceremony for the women was incorporated into WEP's design, known as the Female Offender Rites of Passage. A total of seven annual "Rites of Passage" programs were held in Newark from 2005 to 2011. 

Overall, WEP supported NJSPB and its Division of Community Programs in creating a statewide plan to provide paroled women with gender-responsive programming strategies in community supervision, emergency/transitional housing, and education. In 2009, a study by the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, authored by Heather Tubman Carbone, found that women who participated in FORGE — Female Offender Re-entry Group — were less likely to commit another crime than those who didn't participate in the program.