Founded in 1999, the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) serves residents of the West Side neighborhood through innovative employment initiatives to promote economic opportunity and improved quality of life.
“We started NLEN in direct response to a community need we were seeing for employment opportunities for our brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters returning from correctional institutions,” said Jose Wilson, director of facilitation and organizational learning for NLEN. “When we looked at the mission and vision of READI Chicago, we were excited because we knew there weren’t a lot of services being provided for this population.”
‘This population’ is those who are at the highest risk of gun violence involvement: typically young adult men facing high exposure to trauma, barriers to employment, and disconnection from traditional social and support services.
This is why partners like NLEN, with meaningful and longstanding community relationships, are critical to the success of READI Chicago. By relying on organizations with deep community presence and credibility, READI ensures that community change and economic development come from those who know their communities best, and that participants have access to a wide array of services and resources.
“It’s important for NLEN to hire individuals with lived experience because those are the folks who we’re serving,” Jose said. “We believe that once an individual has done their time, they deserve an opportunity to work and move forward.”
One of these employees, who Jose says are critical to identifying service gaps and informing programming, is READI Chicago Lead Coach Sadie Joseph.
Sadie has been with the READI initiative since its launch in 2017. Her professional skills facilitating cognitive behavioral therapy and professional development, along with the 25 years she spent incarcerated, have helped her inspire and support countless young men in READI.
This summer, Sadie shared her experience at Heartland Alliance’s annual women’s event, Standing Together: A Conversation About Equity. The panel featured four Chicago-based women and criminal justice experts discussing and exploring what can be done to help women who are impacted by permanent punishments—the complex system of policies that prevent people with criminal records from accessing resources necessary to rebuild their lives.
“When you come home after incarceration, it’s like starting all over again from the beginning,” Sadie said. “It’s heartbreaking when no one is willing to take a chance on you.”
Sadie said she is where she is today, helping others to turn their lives around, thanks to NLEN’s U-Turn Permitted, and to the training and investment Heartland Alliances makes into READI Chicago staff and partners. Through our staff’s lived experience, credibility, and compassion they’re able to build relationships with men who have been disconnected and are off the grid. Investing in communities and people through community-based organizations is essential to building a lasting ecosystem of safety and opportunity.
“It’s important for us to shift from punitive to restorative when we think about criminal justice involvement and community development,” Jose said. “People are worth restoring.”
