P&HCC to start program at Henry Co. detention center

Patrick & Henry Community College is partnering with the Henry County Sheriff's Office to bring trade skills to the imprisoned population in efforts to reduce recidivism.

"You all recognize that the employment and the economic renaissance of this community is very, very real," P&HCC President Greg Hodges said at a signing ceremony on Monday. "We are thrilled with the plethora of good paying jobs that we have in our service region, but we also recognize that all of our citizens need a pathway to get those credentials."

"We are delighted that we are able to now become the education and training provider for that population, the justice impacted population, in an effort to help ensure they get the job training skills that they need and then go straight to employment," Hodges said. "Thereby reducing recidivism."

"We all know that skill labor is in short order, in short supply, here in Martinsville, Henry County as well as across our nation," Henry County Sheriff Wayne Davis said. "This certificate-based program provided by Patrick & Henry Community College will give individuals who are incarcerated a pathway forward to have employment opportunities once released from custody."

The first program, slated to start in January, will be an industrial electrical trade program which will take place over a period of 15 weeks. P&HCC staff will teach classes inside the Henry County Adult Detention Center for four hours each Saturday for that period.

This program will allow them to earn multiple certificates in that field that will give them "the foundation to move into more advanced electrical trades," Davis said.

The sheriff's office is currently going through a selection process and to determine who will be fit for the program.

"We absolutely have to take security risks into consideration for our facility as well as the staff of Patrick & Henry," Davis said. "So, we will be evaluating which individuals are fit for the program."

P&HCC is waiting to hear back on if the program will be Fast Forward approved, which means that the costs of the program would be split between P&HCC resources and SCHEV at no cost to students.

"They'll be students just like any other student," Hodges said. "We're just training them there instead of here on our campus."

Though P&HCC is the fifth community colleges in Virginia to put this type of program into practice, P&HCC has successfully used a similar model for the last few years with Hope Center Ministries, a faith-based recovery program.

"They [Hope Center Ministries] assist with addiction recovery for several months and then Patrick Henry comes in on the back end and we provide the job training skills that allow that population to straight into the workforce," Hodges said.

"We know that the pathway to economic mobility for the justice impacted population is to ensure they get a skill, they get a credential, they become employable and can get what we like to call the JOB degree," Hodges said. "So that they can then transition to employment."

"The sky will be the limit for them should they choose to take advantage of this," Davis said.

"Many of these individuals when they're released from custody, they have nothing to go to. They have no foundation from which to start a career or even find a job," Davis said. "We feel like this will be a basis for them to provide a means to support themselves, thereby increasing they're quality of life."

"Hope is a very powerful word," Hodges said. "You let someone who is incarcerated know that they've got a job when they get out — that is a pathway to economic stability and economic mobility. Hope is a very powerful thing."

Monique Holland

(276)-734-9603