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Advocacy
Building Community Through Reentry
FirstFollowers does more than provide services to our constituents. We campaign on issues that impact formerly incarcerated people and our community. We have produced four reports based on participatory action research done by our peer mentors. This has yielded concrete results.
In 2017 we produced a report that helped influence the Housing Authority to offer us the free use of a five-bedroom house to accommodate people returning home from men’s prisons.
In 2022 our research report on community violence played a role in securing funding for activities directed at restoring peace in the community. Our advocacy work has given us profile in the community. Instead of being branded as “criminals” or “felons” we have become a recognized force for social and racial justice.
Outreach
FirstFollowers networks extensively to educate the community about the challenges people face when coming home from prison or jail and other issues that are relevant to the community.
We have:
• brought in high-profile speakers like Susan Burton, the founder of the famed transition house for women, A New Way of Life,
• partnered with the County Clerk and Circuit Clerk to run annual expungement and sealing summits for five years
• held panels of community members to discuss the issue of violence
• organized webinars on key legislative issues that impact our community, such as the Pretrial Fairness Act
• visited classes at the University of Illinois and local schools to share our work
• worked with our State Representative Carol Ammons, to keep the community
informed about upcoming changes in state legislation
• taken part in national gatherings of formerly incarcerated people sponsored by the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Peoples’ Family Movement (FICPFM) and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
