OUR PROGRAMs

Our inside circles have been running continuously for over 25 years. Based in Northern California, we currently host participant-led weekly circles inside at 4 prison facilities: CSP-Sacramento (New Folsom), CSP-Solano, Sierra Conservation Center-Jamestown, and California Medical Facility.

These inside circles remain the core of our mission: change happens when we invite deep healing, accountability, and emotional transformation even in hard, dark places. We know the ripples of this work extend far beyond prison walls into families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities across the country.

Join Inside Circle’s Penpal Program and help foster healing and transformation through heartfelt letters with incarcerated individuals. Inside Circle matches outside writers to pen pals on the inside, and provides a virtual mailbox to ensure personal safety for outside pen pals. We have a straightforward set of guidelines to help you get started. Click below to learn more.

Inside Circle maintains a newsletter sent to inmates inside facilities sharing news, writing, and inspiration to ensure they feel part of a community.

Our Young Adult Empowerment (YAE) program offers life-skills, work readiness, and financial literacy training to help justice-involved young people before and after their release from custody. We bring our signature healing circles inside juvenile facilities. On the outside, we combine 1:1 mentorship and life skills support with healing circles, creating a consistent, continuous support system as they return home,  thus increasing their reentry success.  Through this work, youth participants strengthen social connections, deepen their sense of self-worth and identity, and develop healthy coping strategies.

Currently based in New Jersey and supported largely by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, YAE is expanding to serve young people in Washington DC, Baltimore,  Dallas, West Virginia, Pennsylvania & Egypt.

Project Restore Bed-Stuy (PRB) was a 12-month, community-based violence-intervention program designed to address the root causes of gun violence. Led by credible messengers and supported by university, district attorneys, and a variety of community stakeholder partners, PRB worked with 30 young men affiliated with rival street crews in Bedford-Stuyvesant, NYC. Participants engaged in intensive mentorship, case management, life-skills development, and restorative programming, resulting in over 75% average weekly attendance

The program produced significant progress for participants and the broader community. Young people achieved milestones in employment, education, and legal stabilization, including 93% completing internships, 43% earning employment credentials, seven participants enrolling in college, and all pre-existing legal cases moving toward resolution. PRB  evolved into the resident-led Public Safety Working Group, demonstrating the program’s lasting impact on community safety and cohesion.

Building on the success of Project Restore Bed-Stuy, this is our first replication site. We’re providing training and ongoing support for local community partners in Brownsville to provide weekly circle and wraparound support for young people in this community. Our long-term goal is to redirect justice-impacted youth away from the system and into leadership and long-term employment. Some will become future facilitators themselves, ensuring the sustainability of this work.

The program is a partnership between Inside Circle and Striving to Educate and Empower Kids (SEEK), a youth diversion program operating since 2015 at Sierra Conservation Center–Jamestown that harnesses the lived experience of incarcerated individuals to mentor at-risk youth through education and empowerment. Unlike “scared straight” models, SEEK takes a holistic, family-centered approach by working simultaneously with youth and their primary caregivers: while young people are guided inside by SEEK mentors, caregivers participate in healing circles led by Inside Circle facilitators, creating a safe space to strengthen emotional well-being and gain clarity within a broader family context.

Are you a returning citizen? Find support and resources to help you in your journey. You’re also welcome to join our virtual drop-in circles.

Our drop-in circles are virtual versions of our healing circles, and are free and open to all. You’re welcome to join any time: we only ask that you respect the circle. These circles are offered in Pacific Standard Time and Central European Time.

We recently secured a property for our Healing Home in the Sacramento region. We hope to pilot our supporting reentry program and inaugural Academy efforts in late 2026. Providing safe reentry housing, as well as providing a place where emerging facilitators can find support, practice their skills, or where skilled facilitators from across the country can reconnect by coming in from other regions is a critical strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability and scalability of the work.

Outside Circles bring members of the community into circle with formerly incarcerated leaders. This builds direct connection, understanding, and compassion, creating a ripple effect of a growing number of ambassadors and advocates for our work. We find this has also demonstrated the skill of our Circle-trained facilitators, enabling us to establish a growing reputation as trainers and facilitators.

We are increasingly being sought out to provide technical assistance and facilitate meaningful partnership-building between justice systems and community service organizations, between thought leaders and local partners, and simply as effective team-building and communication/trust building consultants within organizations and corporations who are seeking to do things differently and connect their work to a sense of purpose and connection. This work requires certain criteria to be met, makes use of Inside Circle facilitators, and integrates ongoing training for local organizations to eventually take over the circles.

We are increasingly being sought out to facilitate meaningful partnership-building between justice systems and community service organizations, between thought leaders and local partners, and simply as effective team-building and communication/trust building consultants within organizations and corporations who are seeking to do things differently and connect their work to a sense of purpose and connection. This work requires certain criteria to be met, makes use of Inside Circle facilitators, and integrates ongoing training for local organizations to eventually take over the circles. Click below to request additional information.

Eldra is a skilled facilitator, able to work with groups and individuals to forge connection, and a powerful keynote speaker on topics including toxic masculinity, racism, cultivating emotional intelligence, leadership development, criminal justice reform, and DEI work. His TedTalk has had over 1.6 million views, and he remains a sought-after speaker across the country.

Inside Circle provides guidance, facilitation, and training for communities, organizations, and agencies seeking to work together, to help foster lasting change, and to grow local capacity.