4 Things a Mentor Actually Gives Someone Coming Home: What Reentry Mentoring Looks Like
Most of us have never spent a night in prison, so it's hard to imagine coming home from one. But let's picture it for a moment.
For years, someone else has decided when you wake up, when you eat, and when the lights go out. You haven't chosen what's for dinner, paid a bill, or used a smartphone. The safest lesson you've learned is not to trust anyone.
Then one morning, you are released.
You walk out with a bag of belongings and a list of things to do: get an ID, check in with your parole officer, find a place to sleep, and find a job. Most job applications are online now, and most ask about your criminal record. Your old neighborhood, and the old friends who are still using drugs, are only a bus ride away.
For years, you were told when to do everything. Now nobody is telling you what to do next, and that kind of freedom can be terrifying.
Most of us will never walk out of a prison gate. But any of us could be the person waiting on the other side of it.
Why Isn't a Checklist Enough?
An ID, a place to live, and a job are the foundation of a stable life after prison. Without them, it's nearly impossible to pay rent, buy groceries, or stay away from the people and places that led to trouble in the first place.
Even with every box checked, a person coming home still faces hard days. But a checklist doesn't call to ask how the job interview went or notice when someone stops returning calls. That type of thing takes a person who cares how they're doing, and that person is a mentor.
Scripture describes this kind of relationship in Ecclesiastes:
"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:9–12, NIV
That last line describes mentoring at Along Side Ministries: a person coming home and their mentor walk together, with Christ as the third strand walking alongside them.
Along Side Ministries helps people coming home with housing and life-skills training, and a mentor walks with them through it all. Here are four things that a mentor gives someone along the way.
1. Consistency
Many men and women in prison have spent years with people who came and went. Family members and friends made promises and didn't keep them, so they learned to expect people to leave.
A mentor helps break that cycle of broken promises simply by showing up. When a mentor shows up at the prison week after week, the person they're mentoring has something steady to count on, often for the first time in years. As they work through Biblical transition material together and get to know each other, trust starts to grow, and the person learns that not everyone leaves.
For someone who has learned not to trust anyone, a person who keeps coming back is proof that faithfulness is real, and it points them to a God who is faithful even when we are not.
2. Someone Who Isn't Family and Isn't the System
Family relationships are precious, but they are often strained by years of hurt on both sides. On the other side are parole officers and caseworkers. They play an important role, but their job is to monitor and report.
A mentor fits in the space between. A mentor doesn't carry the family history and has no power over anyone's parole. That makes a mentor a safe person to talk to during the rough patches of adjusting to life on the outside. With a mentor, a person can be honest and say, "I'm scared," "I'm tempted," or "I don't know how to do this."
3. Accountability Without Judgment
Last month, we wrote about why telling someone to "just stop" doesn't break the cycle of addiction. Lasting change takes structure and community, and a mentor provides both.
A good mentor asks hard questions, like "Did you make it to your meeting?" They ask because they want the person to succeed. For many people coming home, it's the first time anyone has held them accountable while also being clearly on their side.
A 2020 study of a reentry mentoring program found that lasting, supportive relationships help people coming home build a new sense of who they are (Kenemore & Seungho, 2020). Shame tells a person that their worst choices define them. A mentor keeps reminding them that their past does not have the final word.
4. A Model of What a Stable Life Looks Like
For many people coming home, this is the first time they've tried to live on the outside as a Christian, and almost everything about it is new. They have to learn how to have fun in healthy ways, how to talk through a conflict instead of shutting down or lashing out, and how to handle a new kind of peer pressure.
Most of us learned those things by watching someone else live them out. A mentor gives the person they're mentoring a real-life example of what a steady, Christ-centered life looks like.
How Does Reentry Mentoring Work at Along Side Ministries?
Along Side Ministries serves both men and women, and mentoring runs through the whole journey. It starts inside prison during Phase 1. In Phase 2, program participants move into Along Side Ministries housing, where mentoring continues alongside Discipleship Groups, Celebrate Recovery, and life-skills training. After graduation, aftercare and alumni support keep those relationships going.
Mentors receive training before they're matched. A mentor typically meets with their mentee for three to six months inside prison, then weekly for nine months after release. At Along Side Ministries, the primary goal of mentoring is for both the mentor and the mentee to grow closer to Christ through their shared experience.
On October 11, another class graduated at First Christian Church Phoenix, raising swords as a symbol of the Word of God. Every one of them had a mentor who walked alongside them to get there.
Housing, recovery programs, work, and church all play a part in the Along Side Ministries model, and mentoring is one of the strands that holds them together. At Along Side Ministries, 97% of our graduates have stayed out of prison. Nationally, about 68% of people released from prison are arrested again within three years (Bureau of Justice Statistics).
Could You Be a Mentor?
You don't need a seminary degree or to have it all together to be a mentor. Nobody has it all together. We're all at different places of the same journey.
The only thing it takes is a willingness to show up and keep showing up. And as you walk alongside someone, your own faith grows right along with theirs.
The next class of graduates will need people to walk beside them, and one of those people could be you.
Want to learn more first? Join us at our next Beyond the Bars event on November 14 at 8:30 AM. Details can be found here:
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