The Lionheart Blog

An update on our Houses of Healing purchases as a result of the First Step Act: between June-September, Lionheart received a tremendous 71 Houses of Healing purchases from federal prisons nationwide!

Laura McDonnell is the Founder and Executive Director of Next Steps Liaison Project, a non-profit dedicated to helping detained and court-involved youth get on a positive path after detention by first providing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) while inside Juvenile Hall, and later a bridge to tangible next steps upon release. Watch the video or read the transcript to learn more.

At the Lionheart Foundation we are committed to expanding the reach and impact of our programs. Much of this work wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and expertise of incredibly talented volunteers. Today we’d like to thank Emilie and Marco.

Solitary confinement is defined as the physical isolation of incarcerated individuals, without meaningful human interaction, for 22-24 hours per day. In most places there is little to no effort to offer rehabilitative programming in solitary confinement. Lionheart wants to change that.

Read this guest blog from 2013, written by Susan Shannon, for the original Houses of Healing group. Also included in this post: Stories from Lifers.

Lionheart’s program for incarcerated adults, Houses of Healing, was recently featured in the Approved Programs Guide published by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons. Since that time, almost 60 federal prisons have purchased the Houses of Healing program! Check out this map that shows the breadth of our reach to these new prisons.

Watch this video, or read the transcript, to learn about Matt’s decision to care for his direct care workers by implementing Lionheart’s EQ2 program.

The Association of Children’s Residential and Community Services (ACRC) gave us just the boost we needed by bringing together partners from across the world to explore best-practices to build transformative and healing communities for youth.

Lionheart’s program for incarcerated adults was recently included in the Approved Programs Guide published by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons. Read more about the listing of Houses of Healing among other approved, standardized prison programs.

Lionheart is pleased to announce that all of the worksheets for the newly released Power Source Facilitator Manual are now available in Spanish! This project was completed in conjunction with two volunteers from Catchafire, an online support that matches nonprofits with highly skilled volunteers.

Effective programming in prison and jail has been shown to be a powerful means of reducing recidivism and empowering people to turn their lives around. Yet, many institutions struggle to put forth and incentivize programs optimally.

With the support of the Gardiner Howland Shaw and J.W. Alden Foundations, Lionheart has been able to strengthen the “villages” of 8 residential programs by providing EQ2 at no cost. Read to find out more!

Lionheart’s Power Source Parenting Program has had a transformative impact in Massachusetts Teen Parenting Programs. Keep reading to find out more.

Lionheart was recently awarded an Innovative Grant by the DJJ within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Read on to find out more about Power Source and our partnering with the nonprofit organization Self-Awareness and Recovery.

Learn about Robin’s work with incarcerated individuals and Lionheart’s newly-released self-study program, Making Time Count.