Formerly Incarcerated Citizens to Receive On-The-Job Training 
Through Programs Funded With $590,000 in Grants 
 
BOSTON, MA — Four organizations will receive funding to place formerly incarcerated citizens reentering the workforce into jobs where they will receive on-the-job training in their new occupations, the Baker-Polito Administration announced today in awarding $590,000 in Re-Entry Workforce Development Demonstration Program grants. 
 
Quinsigamond Community College, Community Work Services, STRIVE Boston, and Future Hope Apprenticeship Program, will each work with public and private business partners to place and train returning citizens into sustainable wage, career-track employment. 
 
The proposed programs would aim to create pathways to securing employment for the returning citizens with business partners in high-demand industry fields including environmental services, culinary, construction, and transportation. 
 
The Re-Entry Workforce Development Demonstration Program is an outcome of the Baker-Polito Administration’s Task Force on Economic Opportunity for Populations Facing Chronically High Rates of Unemployment, chaired by the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, Rosalin Acosta. 
 
The Task Force found that individuals within prison populations experienced complex needs that require intensive interventions for them to be successful in securing and maintaining employment. Access to adequate re-entry services was identified as a barrier to employment that disproportionally impacts the target populations and leads to greater recidivism.