Healing Communities and Toolkits for Faith Communities
The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Healing Communities model encourages communities of faith to minister to members of their own congregations who are affected by crime and the criminal justice system. The Healing Communities model was developed out of the Foundation's recognition that family-strengthening and family economic success efforts are unlikely to succeed without attending to the challenges posed by crime, criminal records, and parent incarceration.
A Healing Community seeks to engage congregations by drawing upon the belief systems and unique strengths of the faith community -- acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, redemption, and restoration. A Healing Community provides what programs and services generally cannot -- the transformation of hearts and minds and the building of relationships that support people. It is not a program, but an approach that engages a ministry of formal and informal support, volunteer service, networking, and advocacy.
Resources for creating a Healing Community
One page handout -- What is a Healing Community? This provides an overview of what a Healing Community is and what’s involved in getting started in creating a Healing Community.
Healing Communities Guides. Three handbooks have been developed to guide those wanting to create a Healing Community within their faith community. They each contain true stories of faith and healing in relation to the criminal justice system, a chapter on the impact of incarceration on communities, chapters on the roles of faith leaders and volunteers, and a chapter on advocacy. They also include appendices with helpful resources.
Balancing Justice with Mercy: A Guide for Creating Healing Communities is written for an interfaith audience; it does not reflect any specific faith tradition.
What Shall We Then Do? An Interdenominational Guide and Kit for Creating Healing Communities is intended to reach a broad Christian audience.
What Shall We Then Do? A Family Freedom Kit for Creating Healing Communities was developed in partnership with the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC).
PowerPoint presentation -- Creating a Healing Community PPT file / PDF file
The PowerPoint walks through the vision of Healing Communities, each chapter of the guide, and offers a set of next steps toward creating a Healing Community. It can be downloaded as a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation so that you can revise it to suit your needs.
We are very interested in your feedback. The materials on this page are going through revisions based on what we hear from people using them. To comment on the Healing Communities framework or these materials, or to ask questions, contact reentry@aecf.org.