Getting Out and Staying Out Inc

GOSO aims to empower young men to avoid involvement in the criminal justice system and to reshape their futures through educational achievement, meaningful employment, and financial independence. GOSO focuses on each participant’s developmental strengths and capacities as well as his practical needs. We promote personal, occupational, and intellectual growth through structured, goal-oriented programming, and social support services focusing on the three E’s—education, employment, and emotional well-being.

According to a report by The Council of State Governments Justice Center (Integrated Reentry and Employment Strategies: Reducing Recidivism and Promoting Job Readiness), in order to reduce criminal behaviors and recidivism, employment service providers must address individuals’ antisocial attitudes and beliefs associated with crime, many of which also impact an individual’s ability to succeed in the workplace. GOSO’s holistic, client-centered approach emphasizes meeting these most pressing needs of our clients, which we call the “three E’s”: education, employment, and emotional well-being. GOSO’s strategies include:

• High School Equivalency Classes: Collaborating with the New York City Department of Education (DoE), GOSO has
established a high school equivalency (HSE) program that is operated out of our Education Center in East Harlem.
Classes are taught by DoE educators, and class sizes are kept small to ensure students receive individual attention.
• Job Readiness Curriculum: Ensuring participants’ successful completion of a rigorous two-week curriculum focused
on career exploration, resume writing, interview techniques, and appropriate workplace conduct.
• GOSOWorks: Placing and supporting participants in a three-month paid internship leading to permanent
employment. Approximately 70% of internships lead to full-time employment.
• Onsite Vocational Trainings: Offering onsite vocational trainings, including: General Industry OSHA Training, 30-Hour
OSHA Construction Training, 4-Hour Supported Scaffolding Training, and 16-Hour Security and Fireguard Training.
• Group Psychotherapy and Soft Skills-Building Sessions: Facilitating daily therapy sessions where participants openly
discuss family and parenting issues, harm reduction, career issues, and other concerns in order to increase their
capacity for positive self-expression, anger management, delayed gratification, and empathy.

By hiring licensed social workers to develop and facilitate its holistic programming, GOSO expertly utilizes evidenced-based approaches, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Internal Family Systems, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, which assist individuals in acquiring the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understanding and managing emotions; feeling and showing empathy for others; establishing and maintaining positive relationships; and setting and achieving practical and prosocial goals.

GOSO Case Workers, referred to as Career Managers, are trained to understand and respond to the fact that many justice-involved youth have experienced a significant amount of trauma during childhood and incarceration. GOSO clients often struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as other mental health issues as they attempt to improve their education and job readiness skills. Even for individuals without serious mental health diagnoses, many participants in our target population face significant emotional stressors in their daily life that they need help navigating, including economic and social barriers such as financial instability due to lack of meaningful employment, racial discrimination, and stigma surrounding their involvement with the justice system. GOSO's Career Managers have developed a continuum of programs, based on evidence-based practices, which address these issues and help our participants achieve the emotional stability needed to pursue their educational and career goals.

In the 15 years since its founding, GOSO has served over 10,000 young men who have touchpoints with the criminal justice system, helping them to complete their education, obtain meaningful employment, and achieve emotional well-being. In each year since our founding, the recidivism rate for our active participants has been at or below 15%; our current recidivism rate for active participants is 3%.

GOSO launched Stand Against Violence East Harlem (SAVE) in 2015 at the request of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ). While SAVE works closely with GOSO in many ways, it has a separate staff and a tight focus on a distinct mission: SAVE is committed to preventing gun violence and building a culture of non-violence to bring peace and economic development to East Harlem. AVE was originally contracted by MOCJ to focus its violence prevention efforts in and around the Thomas Jefferson and James W. Johnson NYCHA Housing Developments. Due to their credibility within Jefferson and Johnson and their familiarity with the stakeholders at Wagner, SAVE was awarded an amendment to our current MOCJ contract to expand services to the Wagner houses. This increased support represents a decisive vote of confidence, and allows us to allocate skilled administrative staff and a clinical background to SAVE as we further professionalize the program.

GOSO has also hired staff whose focus is to help expand key programs, including a Housing and Benefits Coordinator to help centralize our efforts to connect participants to housing resources and benefits like SNAP and Medicaid. In doing so, we eliminate the weeks-long wait participants’ face by accessing outside care and we significantly decrease the unease with navigating an unfamiliar system.