“Reentry work is not something that I had thought about much before law school,” Senior Staff Attorney Sarah Williams says. “But I did it as a summer intern and it was a real way to help people, and there was a lot of hope attached to it. We’re connecting with people when they're on an upswing. Mistakes have happened, but now they're out and trying to get their life back on track. They deserve an opportunity to do that, and there are some real ways that we can help them.”

Williams’ dedication to supporting Rubicon’s participants has earned her recognition as one of 20 individuals on Nonprofit HR’s 2022 Social Impact Women to Watch list. The list honors “outstanding women who accomplish the impossible against all odds,” and Nonprofit HR received a record number of nominations from across North America this year.

A fellow Rubicon staff member nominated Williams and acknowledged some of the many ways that she interacts with and supports participants. “Sarah has co-designed and co-led workshops for hundreds of participants, explaining in lay terms complicated legal interventions that are available to address a wide range of common challenges, from record clearing relief, to professional licensing access, employment rights, housing insecurity and family reunification and child support,” the nomination letter said.

“We all very much believe in what we do here at Rubicon, how important it is and the services that we can provide participants and the relationships we've formed with participants,” Williams says. “We really care about them. We want the best for them and for them to be able to move forward and do the things they're meant to do.”

Click here to read more about Williams’ recognition as a 2022 Social Impact Woman to Watch and to see the full list of finalists.

Rubicon commits to the continuous investment in our participants. Helping participants progress, grow and prosper on the journey toward economic mobility is vital to our mission. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rubicon has innovated and adapted in order to continue to provide our services to as many community members as possible.

Word-of-mouth referrals have always been Rubicon’s most valuable source of new participants. Our participants’ excitement for and success in the program can be the best motivation for another person joining. In an effort to enhance our word-of-mouth marketing and further invest in Rubicon participants, Rubicon has launched a new incentive program. In this incentive program, Rubicon participants who complete the Foundations workshop series will receive an investment of $100. In case you’re unfamiliar, the Foundations workshops are led by Rubicon coaches and help participants build their employment, financial, and wellness skills. Furthermore, Rubicon will invest an additional $100 in a participant if they refer someone else who then completes the Foundations workshop series.

The incentive program is off to a solid start, with over a dozen participants earning the incentive for completing the workshops so far. Concord participant Marquetis is one of the first to earn the participant referral incentive. Marquetis is grateful for the incentive, and he says he has more people that he knows that he’s planning to refer for future cohorts. “I appreciate you guys [Rubicon] helping me, and I know many people who could use that kind of support.”

Similar to Marquetis, participants who complete the Foundations workshop series are often motivated to share their newfound knowledge and have a desire to help their communities. And now with the incentive program, participants have even more motivation to connect those they know to Rubicon as we continue to build towards an East Bay without poverty.

Since the program launched in February, Rubicon is closely monitoring how it impacts program enrollment and completion rates. Rubicon hopes to see a steady rise in our numbers and plans to continue to innovate as needed. In fact, Rubicon leadership is currently in the process of developing a ‘milestone’ incentive program, which would provide additional investments in participants. Milestones that have already been approved include ones for securing employment and for maintaining that employment for 3, 6, and 12 months. If you know anyone who may benefit from participating in the Rubicon Foundations workshop series, please have them email their contact info and the name of the person referring them to impactcoaches@rubiconprograms.org.
 

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA – Rubicon Programs, as the lead agency in the Better Careers Design Group (BCDG), will launch the pilot of the Returning Home Career Grant this month to support at least fifteen justice-involved adults in Alameda County. Collaborating on this project since 2020, the BCDG is a partnership composed of five prominent organizations: Rubicon Programs, Alameda County Workforce Development Board, Growth Sector, Alameda County Probation Department, and Third Sector. With seed support from the James Irvine Foundation, the project features two primary components aimed at improving quality of life and economic outcomes for adults who are returning home from incarceration.

The first component of the project is providing direct monetary and mentorship support to those re-entering the workforce following incarceration. Participants selected for the pilot will receive a $1500 monthly stipend for 9-18 months. This model represents a larger monthly investment over a longer period of time than other regional stipend programs aimed at providing a guaranteed basic income, representing a total investment of up to $27,000 per participant in stipends alone. The monthly stipend is unrestricted for the participants, meaning there are no reporting or expense tracking requirements tied to receiving the funds. Participants will have the ability to spend the funds as needed for basic needs such as shelter, food, transportation, or other expenses that would otherwise be a burden to cover while working towards their career goals.

Dr. Carole “DC” Dorham-Kelly, President and CEO of Rubicon Programs, emphasizes that unrestricted grant support is a vital investment in facilitating the individual and community shifts that the project aims to create. “Incorporating best practices from established GBI programs, minimizing restrictions on how beneficiaries can use the funds is essential to maximize flexibility and true impact on quality of life,” Dorham-Kelly says. “This level of unrestricted support to a community that has long been distrusted, discounted, and kept on the fringes aims to ignite new narratives of equity, inclusion, and worthiness.” 

The pilot cohort will be limited to referrals received from eligible Community Based Organizations (CBOs) providing pre-release and post-release services to justice-involved adults. Select CBO partners will nominate participants who are engaged in their programs and services, for whom this grant opportunity will alleviate barriers to employment and career mobility. In addition to financial support, the partner CBOs will provide one-on-one mentorship and goal support. Mentors will help participants map out their career pathways, explore county resources or services, and keep track of their achievements.

The second component of the project is developing a Fair Chance Hiring Video for employers. This multi-media tool will build the capacity and awareness of local employers who are uncertain of the benefits and considerations for hiring justice-involved job applicants. The video will feature snapshots of people leaving jail or prison, navigating various circumstances, pursuing career goals, and successfully entering diverse industries. The goal of the digital piece is to encourage more employers to support, train, and hire more justice-involved adults directly.

By focusing a portion of the pilot on confronting stereotypes around justice-involved job seekers, the project will address systemic barriers to career mobility in addition to individual challenges. The video will address common assumptions about justice-involved individuals in an effort to change employers’ hearts and minds, particularly about people with “serious” or “violent” convictions.

Donté Blue, Rubicon’s Chief of Programs, explains the significance of the video component to the project. “This video is important because we have always felt finding the best worker from the entire pool of potential employees is a good business decision,” Blue says. “But more importantly, while everyone in the community tends to agree reducing crime is a good thing, giving work that can sustain a formerly incarcerated person and their family is a proven crime prevention strategy at work.”

Through an equity-based continuous improvement plan, the BCDG will collect information from career grant recipients, engaged employers, and mentorship partners to better understand their experiences and outcomes and make appropriate adjustments over the course of the pilot. The goal is to learn from and improve upon the project over the course of the 18-month pilot so that participation leads to improved economic outcomes and quality of life for justice-involved individuals. The BCDG expects that the success of the project will lead to an extension beyond the pilot period.

Rubicon Programs received seed funding of $500,000 from the James Irvine Foundation for the pilot’s first year, which coincides with the 2022 calendar year. Without additional funding, the duration of support will be limited to 9 months, rather than the 18-month design. Additional unrestricted funding is being sought by Third Sector and Rubicon Programs to support the pilot through the remaining nine months, as well as to expand the project to serve up to 25 individuals. Ongoing funding to support the program beyond the initial pilot is also being prospected from public and philanthropic sources.

This past fall, Rubicon held training workshops for staff on trauma-informed care, a core competency that staff is expected to demonstrate in their interactions with participants and one another. The training took place over several weeks and included time for reflection, small group discussions, and grounding exercises, among other activities.

For this year’s workshop, Rubicon’s Wellness Manager and SAMHWORKS Mental Health Clinician Marcia Miller co-facilitated alongside Kate Wadsworth, LCSW from Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants. Miller says it’s important to recognize how trauma affects individuals’ interactions with one another and with Rubicon’s services. “We’ve all experienced some type of trauma, even if we don’t think of it as ‘trauma,’” Miller says. “I think about the population we serve, and we don’t know what they’ve experienced before they walk through our doors. It might be systemic trauma from incarceration, poverty, or racism, but everyone who comes through Rubicon doors at some time in their life has been impacted by trauma.”

All staff is expected to participate in the workshops, regardless of their title, tenure, or if they work directly with participants. The training is intended to equip staff with the tools to recognize trauma, stay grounded in overwhelming situations, identify resources that can help those experiencing or reliving traumatic experiences, and use trauma-informed care strategies to identify and support certain difficult situations. In addition to informing how staff engages with participants, staff is encouraged to use their trauma-informed care training to support one another if they notice a change in a coworker’s demeanor or ability to manage their usual workload, which could be stemming from vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and/or secondary traumatic stress.

Staff input has also been an important part of how Rubicon’s trauma-informed care training has evolved over the years. The most recent training was broken down into shorter sessions over multiple days, and more space was given for grounding exercises and debriefing, among other changes made to support staff’s ability to process the information.

Ron Colvin, Learning and Development Specialist for Rubicon Programs, collected staff feedback about the workshops to inform how the next trauma-informed care series will be presented. This year’s feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with nearly 98 percent of participants saying that the training was either good or excellent and 100 percent saying they would recommend the training to colleagues.

“I believe the training was a success,” Colvin says. “The training helped staff recognize trauma and put them in a better position to understand it. Even those who do not work directly with the public discussed the benefit of the training from the standpoint that they know it would help them with their own lives and work with each other.”

Trauma-informed care training has been offered at Rubicon for five years. Many employees continue to attend the workshops each time they are offered to refresh their skills and learn new ones, as best practices around working with people experiencing trauma are regularly updated and shifting.

“Several employees who felt they already knew about trauma mentioned that the training helped them learn new material and reflect on what they already knew,” Colvin says. “I know that this training will help us at Rubicon better serve our participants, work with each other, and even help us in our own lives.”

Miller agrees that the training is beneficial to staff, regardless of whether they work directly with participants, and she sees Rubicon as a leader in the trauma-informed care space. “Based on my experience in this field, Rubicon is ahead of the game by having all staff participate,” Miller says. “Rubicon thinks about staff and how staff is impacted by trauma. That’s something we can appreciate.”

Rubicon's commitment to lasting systemic change means that we go beyond our work with individuals to challenge the systems that keep people in the cycle of poverty. One way that we do this is through legislative advocacy. When a bill related to our work is introduced in the California State Legislature, Rubicon's team of attorneys will often receive requests from the public and our partner organizations to advocate for or against the bill, depending on the content. Below is a summary of the bills that Rubicon supported and opposed in 2021 and their outcomes in the Legislature, prepared by Senior Staff Attorney Sarah Williams:

• Bills supported by Rubicon that were signed into law:
  • SB 73 (Wiener) – probation alternatives for drug offenses
    • Summary: This bill would allow the court to sentence people to probation for certain drug crimes for which there are currently mandatory minimums requiring jail time.
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/5/21
  • SB 81 (Skinner) – judicial guidance on sentencing enhancements
    • Summary: This bill would change how judges use sentence enhancements and would establish a presumption that the sentence enhancement should only be used when there is "clear and convincing evidence" that not applying the sentence enhancement would endanger the public. This would lead to fewer sentence enhancements being applied. 
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/8/21
  • AB 1259 (Chiu) – expanding access to post-conviction relief of PC 1473.3
    • Summary: PC 1473.3 allowed people who were convicted by plea bargain to request that the court vacate their conviction if they were not informed of the immigration consequences of their conviction. This bill extends PC 1473.3 to all people, including those convicted by jury trial. 
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 9/30/21
  • AB 333 (Kamlager) – The STEP Forward Act
    • Summary: This bill provides reform in sentencing related to gang enhancements.
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature signed by Governor  10/8/21
  • SB 354 (Skinner) – family reunification
    • Summary: This bill would make it easier for people with criminal histories to foster relative children who are part of the child welfare system.
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/8/21
  • AB 1540 (Ting) – Resentencing under PC 1170(d)(1)
    • Summary: California Penal Code § 1170(d)(1) allows certain law enforcement officials, including the Secretary of CDCR or any elected district attorney, to request that a person be resentenced. This bill will create procedural steps to ensure that all PC 1170(d)(1) petitions are heard by the courts by giving notifications to loved ones about their referrals, establishing court deadlines and rights to counsel, among other procedural protections.
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/8/21
  • AB 118 (Kamlager) – Community Response Initiative to Support Emergency Systems (C.R.I.S.E.S. Act)
    • Summary: This bill would create a pilot program that will support community-based responses to emergency situations instead of police-based responses. 
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/8/21
  • SB 483 (Allen): RISE Act of 2021
    • Summary: This bill would make the repeal of sentencing enhancements from SB 180 and SB 136 (passed in 2017 and 2019, respectively) retroactive
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; signed by Governor 10/8/21
• Bills opposed by Rubicon that did not pass the Legislature:
  • SB 358 (Jones): Increased Punishment for Package Theft – Opposition
    • Summary: This bill would increase the punishment for package theft from 6 months in jail to 1 year in jail. Rubicon has opposed this bill.
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
• Bills supported by Rubicon that did not pass the Legislature:
  • AB 15 (Chiu) – Tenant Stabilization Act of 2021 - extending eviction protections
    • Summary: Extends AB 3088’s COVID-related eviction protections, which included certain procedural requirements and limitations on evictions for nonpayment of rent due to COVID-19 rental debt.
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 355 (Becker) – fee waiver adjustments
    • Summary: This bill would increase the number of people eligible for a fee waiver of court filing fees by expanding the eligible list of accepted public benefits and increasing the income threshold from 125% of the Federal poverty guidelines to the low level of the HUD/HCD standards.
    • Outcome: Ordered to inactive file - did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 82 (Skinner) – petty theft is not armed robbery
    • Summary: This bill would no longer allow California's robbery law to include petty theft crimes. It would create a new category of "petty theft in the first degree," which is more serious than simple petty theft but less serious than robbery. 
    • Outcome: Held in Committee – did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 262 (Hertzberg & Skinner) – bail reform
    • Summary: This bill would create a fairer pre-trial system by 1) reducing bail to $0 for most misdemeanors and low-level felonies; 2) ensuring people accused do not remain in custody simply because they cannot afford to pay bail and do not assume any costs of court-imposed release conditions; and, 3) requiring bail companies to refund the premiums they receive from defendants who aren’t charged; have their case dismissed or make all of their required court appearances.
    • Outcome: Ordered to inactive file - did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 29 (Bonta) – bail reform
    • Summary: Assembly version of SB 262, described above
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 717 (Stone)  - CA IDs
    • Summary: This bill will expand the Cal-ID program so that all people released from the custody of CDCR have a chance to receive a photo identification card before their reentry into society.
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 299 (Leyva) – Police Misconduct Victim Compensation
    • Summary: This bill would remove barriers faced by victims of police violence and other violent crimes in accessing California’s Victim Compensation program.
    • Outcome: Ordered to inactive file - did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 731 (Durazo) – Sunsetting Convictions 
    • Summary: This bill would provide for automatic record sealing and expungement after a certain period of time has passed. A similar bill was passed in 2019 (AB 1076), but that bill was only prospective. SB 731 would be retroactive. 
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 300 (Cortese) – Sentencing Reform Act of 2021
    • Summary: This bill would reform California's "felony murder special circumstance" law to ensure that the death penalty and life without the possibility of parole cannot be imposed on those who did not kill, nor intend that a person die, during a crime. SB 1437 from 2018 reformed the first-degree felony murder rule, but it did not change “felony murder special circumstances.”
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 1509 (Lee) – Anti-Racism Sentencing Reform Act for Firearms
    • Summary: This bill would end the 10, 20, 25-to-life gun enhancement law and reduce it to 1, 2, or 3 years. It would apply prospectively and retroactively.
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 256 (Kalra) – California Racial Justice Act for All
    • Summary: The California Racial Justice Act, which was passed as AB 2542, prohibits the state from seeking or obtaining a criminal conviction or from imposing a sentence, based upon race, ethnicity or national origin. It also made it possible for a person charged or convicted of a crime to challenge racial bias in their case. However, it was only prospective and not retroactive. AB 256 would make AB 2542 retroactive.
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 907 (Santiago) – Reforming Driver’s License Penalties
    • Summary: This bill would make driving on a suspended license for failure to pay a fine and driving without a license infractions, rather than offenses that can be charged as misdemeanors leading to jail time. It would also limit the fine to $50 and prohibit the addition of other fees on top of the time, and reduce the DMV points to zero.
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 470 (Carrillo) – Eliminating the Medi-Cal Asset Test
    • Summary: This bill would eliminate the Medi-Cal asset limit for programs serving senior citizens and people with disabilities
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
  • AB 1308 (Ting): Fair Arrest & Conviction Relief
    • Summary: This bill applies the state’s automated process of clearing an arrest or criminal record for eligible individuals to convictions that occurred between 1973 and 2022
    • Outcome: Did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 222 (Dodd): Water assistance
    • Summary: This bill establishes a Water Rate Assistance Fund that would help people who are behind on their water bills
    • Outcome: Ordered to inactive file - did not pass Legislature this year
  • SB 223 (Dodd): Water assistance
    • Summary: This bill would help low-income people maintain water service if they are unable to pay their water bill
    • Outcome: Held under submission – did not pass Legislature this year
• Bills supported by Rubicon that passed the Legislature but were vetoed by Governor
  • SB 804 (Glazer) – CDCR Fire Training Program
    • Summary: This bill would create a forestry training center in the East Bay for formerly incarcerated people. It would also make participants eligible for entry-level forestry positions with Cal Fire.
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; vetoed by Governor
  • AB 990 (Santiago): Rights to Visitation While Incarcerated
    • Summary: This bill would make the right to visits for incarcerated people a civil right and make it more difficult for CDCR to limit visits
    • Outcome: Passed Legislature; sent to Governor for signature; vetoed by Governor

Updated as of 12/6/21