Lived Experience Community Mentoring

Our Lived Experience (Credible Messenger) Mentoring Program is based on a holistic, comprehensive approach to mentoring that transforms and improves individual lives, rearranges the relationship between communities and the justice system, and empowers our communities to use the resources they have within them to maintain public safety and family well-being. Using this community-first philosophy, our lived experience (credible messenger) approach seeks to build trust and inspire change from within communities so that they can feel positive about possibilities rather than facing a future of frustration, incarceration, or addiction.

Our mentors have passed through the justice system and sustainably transformed their lives. Returned citizens (previously incarcerated) and others with similarly relevant experiences want to give back to help others. Their life experience provides them with a special ability to connect with younger, justice-involved youth and families.

From the same background, the same neighborhoods, and speaking the same language, our mentors are able to break through to these individuals and form powerful, transformative personal relationships. With the development of trust over time, they provide our youth with a living example of hope and opportunity and are able to equip them with new tools to manage their emotions and behaviors and thus change their lives.