SNAP E&T 2024 National Forum: Reentry Realities, Food Security, Supports and a Path to Economic Stability

The Center for Employment Opportunities led an interactive session to increase understanding of participant experience in SNAP E&T, focused on understanding the employment and mobility barriers experienced by individuals returning from incarceration. This session intends to create a space for storytelling and sharing, while also providing suggested tactics agencies can use for engaging and understanding participant experience to improve their programs. In this interactive session, audience members engaged with different stages that simulate the experience of the immediate weeks following incarceration to meet employment-related needs, including obtaining identification, maintaining housing, applying for benefits and complying with supervision requirements, such as treatment and parole officer meetings. Session attendees heard directly from those with lived experience, allowing even the most experienced professionals to have renewed appreciation for the value and determination of E&T participants with legal system involvement.

Presenters:

• Leah Bacon, Director of Investment Advocacy, Center for Employment Opportunities
• Tyree Chwilinski, Project Manager, Platform, Center for Employment Opportunities
• Ubaldo Chavez, Business Account Manager, Center for Employment Opportunities Denver
• Ella Saunders, Pathways to Employment Instructor and Outreach Specialist, Center for Employment Opportunities Philadelphia