Google Map of Reentry Service Providers

 

Map of Mobile and Prichard, AL with service providers, bus routes, and wi-fi hotspots pinpointed.

In collaboration with a professor and students at Spring Hill College, we created the New Day Experience project site to provide resources for organizations that work with persons previously incarcerated to provide a new start. Projects include the experiential learning activities that are part of the sociology coursework, as well as service opportunities organized for students as part of the Ignatian mission and identity of the Jesuit and Catholic College. For example, projects included students running the re-entry simulation for leaders in the community and developing a Google Map of service providers for persons exiting the prison system in conjunction with Project H.O.P.E.  subcommittee and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Alabama. Our goal is to help reduce recidivism in Mobile County.

Here’s the Spring Hill College sociology project website, A New Day Experience. This initiative grew from an idea I had when I heard the professor present on the reentry simulation at a local conference. He noted student feedback suggesting that reentry simulation participants needed a map to reduce the confusion on where to access necessary resources. I connected that thought to the real world and proposed the electronic solution of a Google Map of reentry resources. Our current New Day Experience Reentry Resource Map has 60 service locations with an overlay of the City’s bus stops and routes.

The next steps include providing a foldable paper map and producing a mobile app for the intended users and reentry service providers. See our slide presentation delivered at the Association of Educational Communications & Technology 2019 conference in Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to contact me for more information about this project or how to replicate it in your city.

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Sandra Annette Rogers, Ph.D.

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