Policy & Practice | Fall 2026

about 90 days after my release. What I had learned informally at Kewanee became, at Phalanx, a set of skills I could carry with me professionally. That’s the bridge most people coming home don’t get. Lived experience alone doesn’t translate into a job, and a business plan alone doesn’t translate into a company. It takes an employer, a program, or a system willing to invest in turning it into something struc tured. I got that twice—once from a facility that decided to prepare people differently, and once from an employer that built on what that facility started. Most returning citizens get neither. We’ve put in digital literacy work alongside Nimdee Labs, teaching returning citizens the basic tech skills that incarceration takes away—the same gap Seneca and I both had to climb out of on our own. That work is exactly why GOT JOBS America is launching the Jobs 4 Justice Initiative (J4JI). J4JI is a direct call to upskill returning citizens in technology and AI, and to build those skills into real career paths in those areas—not just job readiness for work that’s already disappearing, but training that leads into where the labor market is actually going.

The Human in Human Services is a recurring article featuring authors with lived experience as clients of the human services system. In this issue, we highlight Ricky Hamilton , the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of GOT JOBS America (GJA), a Chicago-based, justice-impacted-led workforce development and reentry solutions firm he and his business partner founded while both were incarcerated. He also serves as the Employee Navigation Director for Employer Services under the Imani Works Green Grace Initiative (CEJA) and as a Strategic Consultant to APHSA’s Community Impact Council. Ricky spent the last four and a half years of his incarceration at Kewanee Life Skills Reentry Center, where he co-founded TWO ROADS, the first and now-largest resident-run prison publication in the country. He is a member of the Illinois Reentry Council’s 1115 Medicaid subgroup and co-facilitates men’s wellness and community healing programming through The Floyd Organization. Ricky writes and speaks on reentry, technology access, and economic mobility, drawing on his own return from nearly two decades of incarceration.

edit, build, and hire. What’s missing is the will and the funding to scale it. That’s the investment we’re asking for. J4JI needs employers, funders, and partners willing to build the technology and AI pipeline returning citizens haven’t had. Seneca is closing that gap right now, teaching himself what no one taught him. The question isn’t whether people like us can adapt. It’s whether the systems around us will finally decide to help. Visit gotjobsamerica.com to sign up as a supporter of J4JI and help us build it.

We believe employment is how you break a cycle of poverty that incarcera tion deepens instead of interrupts. A job isn’t just income, or a program outcome. It’s the first proof, for someone coming home, that the system didn’t finish writing their story for them. The state has already seen proof of concept. Kewanee showed that giving people real access to technology and real business training inside doesn’t compromise safety—it produces people who come home able to write, teach,

APHSA’s blog, The Catalyst , encourages the exchange of creative ideas and promising initiatives to strengthen the human services sector and accelerate our collective impact. Featuring content from members, partners, and staff, our blog posts focus on what it takes to build well-being from the ground up. Organized around areas of impact as well as a variety of special series, our goal is to spark new ideas and accelerate the spread of promising approaches that help realize our shared vision for thriving communities built on human potential.

Read the Latest Post, Visit https://aphsa.org/the-catalyst/

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