Concord Prison Outreach offers high-quality, transformative programs that focus on education, personal growth and increased opportunity for incarcerated people and their families.
Our programs cover a wide range of subjects that fall into five categories.
VOCATIONAL SKILLS
Vocational courses are very popular, particularly with those who have their release dates in view. CPO programming teaches skills necessary to seek employment, and to match the needs of potential employers, upon release from prison.
SOCIO-EMOTIONAL
Emotional growth is an essential pillar of CPO’s mission of Education, Connection, and Transformation. It is essential to the life trajectories of the people in prison, and to society as a whole, to develop strategies for managing emotions and behavior ...
FAMILIES & CHILDREN
The number of children with an incarcerated parent is on the rise. Maintaining parent-child connections is linked to positive outcomes for children, improves the quality of life for the parent in prison, and reduces stress for the co-parent. CPO volunteers can contribute to programming aimed at supporting families.
ARTS & HUMANITIES
Participation in the arts can increase feelings of self-worth, reduce stress, and be a positive and safe outlet for emotion for all people. For people in prison, these benefits are accompanied by the possibility of reconnecting to interests held in better times and developing interests that bring meaning to daily life.
CPO also offers special programs outside the prisons including:
HOLIDAY GIFT BAG PROJECT
For decades, Concord Prison Outreach has sponsored the Holiday Gift Bag Project, providing a bag of simple, useful gifts to each incarcerated man in Concord’s two state prisons. Each bag contains toiletries, writing materials, a pocket calendar, and a greeting card.
WELCOMEBACKpack PROGRAM
The Massachusetts Department of Correction and Concord Prison Outreach have partnered to develop the “WELCOMEBACKpack” program to address some of the wide disparities in resources available to people released from prison.
“NAMING THE UNNAMED” PROJECT
A multi-faceted community-based project, "Naming the Unnamed" memorializes 218 men buried at the Concord Reformatory Cemetery, bringing this historic place forward as an integral part of Concord’s future.
