Community, Opportunities, Resources, Employment.

We are dedicated to supporting justice-impacted individuals and their families by providing comprehensive support services. Our mission is to collaborate with community organizations, employers, and educational partners to create pathways that help individuals overcome barriers and achieve their fullest potential.

The Challenge

In the United States, 1 in 3 adults has a criminal record, affecting approximately 80 million people. There are 44,000 laws nationwide that restrict access for individuals with criminal records, with 19,000 specifically targeting employment. The unemployment rate for those with criminal records is over 27%, higher than any other unemployment rate in U.S. history, including during the Great Depression. In Illinois alone, 3.3 million people are affected by 1,300 restrictive laws, primarily limiting employment opportunities.

COMMUNITY

Community support is one of the most important elements to reentry. C.O.R.E. works to engage and educate all strata of the community on your behalf.

OPPORTUNITIES

A natural outcome of community engagement is the awareness of opportunities. We believe the more opportunities an individual is presented with the more free they can be. Let us help you see the opportunities.

RESOURCES

Sometimes we are not aware of the resources that exist, C.O.R.E. can help you learn about the resources that are available to you and how they can help you.

EMPLOYMENT

Educating employers about the benefits of Second Chance Hiring is one of our tenets, we advocate on your behalf to make sure employers understand the benefits of developing Second Chance programs.

About CORE Re-Entry

The C.O.R.E. Re-Entry Center was born out of the lived experience of its’ Founder Michael Brawn. Mr. Brawn served sixteen plus years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, fourteen and a half locally at the Danville Correctional Center. During his time Mr. Brawn started down two parallel journeys. The first was recognizing and addressing those issues

that contributed to the decisions he made that led to his incarceration, issues such as addiction, anger, and trauma. The programs he was lucky to have been part of were all steeped in the peer-to-peer learning dynamic which allowed him the space to really understand himself through the experiences of others who had travelled those same self-destructive paths.

The second journey was an academic one which during those sixteen years earned him the following certifications and degrees; Certified Associate Addictions Professional, Certified Peer Educator, A Certificate in Education Studies from the University of Illinois, Associate in Science Degree from Lake Land College, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Eastern Illinois University. In addition, he will sit for the test to become a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist in May of 2023.

In 2012 these separate paths became one as he began to use what he was learning from each to begin to facilitate his own classes about addiction, anger, & trauma. In 2018 he co-founded the Building Block with Renaldo Hudson and Robert Reed, The Building Block, a peer-to-peer mentoring program that was contained within one of the wings at the Danville Correctional Center.

As the Building Block grew to serve the needs of approximately five hundred individuals in custody Mr. Brawn recognized that there was not enough specific program content for those individuals who were close to returning to society. In 2021 he developed and started a reentry wing that’s curriculum is completely focused on preparing everyone for the transition back to their communities.

Mr. Brawn developed the idea for C.O.R.E. based on his experience from these programs. C.O.R.E is founded in the belief that successful reentry into society requires coordination between the Department of Corrections where the process begins and the community where the process continues. The C.O.R.E. Re-Entry Center becomes the physical representation of this coordination.