Initiative Overview

The Corrections Literacy Initiative (CLI) is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development and the Ministry of the Solicitor General. It offers Literacy and Basic Skills services to those in remand or custody in select correctional institutions in Ontario. The pilot is an extension of Employment Ontario`s Literacy and Basic Skills program.

The initiative currently funds 13 service providers to offer Literacy and Basic Skills training at 16 correctional institutions across the province with the aim to reach up to 1,200 learners annually.

Adults in custody face significant barriers to education, training, employment and social inclusion. Approximately 75 per cent of the correctional population has not completed Grade 12, and 20 per cent has less than a Grade 9 education.

Successful community reintegration on release from custody is enhanced when there are greater opportunities for offenders to engage in learning, education and rehabilitation, which increases prospects for employment and ultimately assists with reducing the risk of reoffending.

There is currently no uniform approach to providing literacy and essential skills training in Ontario’s correctional institutions. As a way to help fill this gap, the Corrections Literacy Initiative was launched in fall 2017.

The program participants, many highly-barriered, are provided the opportunity to learn skills on which to build further learning, enhance training opportunities, and potentially help with future employment.

The ministry works closely with the Ministry of the Solicitor General to enhance performance outcomes by analyzing client data and performance measures to more accurately understand and report client outcomes.

Additionally, the ministries continuously strategize ways to improve service delivery within the institutions by leveraging insight from service providers on successes, challenges, and best practices in delivering the Corrections Literacy Initiative.

As per the Literacy and Basic Skills Guidelines, service providers are expected to attempt follow-ups with these participants upon release.

To support this activity, the ministry implemented system enhancements to capture more relevant and accurate details on Corrections Literacy Initiative learner participation and outcomes.

Service providers are able to include a Start Date and an End Date and further select an Exit Reason for the participants. The following exit reasons can be selected:

• Released from the correctional facility; without continuing in LBS with same provider
• Released from the correctional facility; but continuing in LBS with same provider
• Transferred to another correctional facility
• Expresses no further interest in participating in Corrections Literacy Initiative

The ability to close the Corrections Literacy Initiative plan, but keep their Literacy and Basic Skills service plan open, will also help to show the number of clients who continued with regular Literacy and Basic Skills services upon their institutional release at that service provider. It will also show if they have been referred out to another service provider, such as an Employment Services provider, further providing outcome data.

The ministry has identified the following four performance measures to evaluate the pilot:

• Learner Progress: The progress of participants, who are in a provincial correctional facility for a longer period, in completing the activities as per the learning plan they developed (with their service provider) after they have registered for the LBS program;
• Re-Registration: The number of participants that re-register in the Literacy and Basic Skills program (and respectively Corrections Literacy Initiative pilot), if they return to a provincial correctional facility;
• Post-Release Engagement: The number of participants who engage in the Literacy and Basic Skills and/or other Employment Ontario programs following release from provincial correctional facilities; and,
• Employment and Training Outcomes: The outcomes achieved by former Corrections Literacy participants who engaged in the Literacy and Basic Skills and/or another Employment Ontario program following release from provincial correctional facilities.

These measures outline the pilot’s goal to act as a conduit for the participants to connect with other government programs and services in the community once they are released from incarceration.

Currently, the Corrections Literacy Initiative is offered at the following correctional institutions across Ontario:

1. Kenora Jail
2. Algoma Treatment & Remand Centre
3. Sudbury Jail
4. Thunder Bay Jail
5. Toronto East Detention Centre
6. Vanier Centre for Women (Milton)
7. Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre
8. Niagara Detention Centre
9. South West Detention Centre
10. Quinte Detention Centre
11. Ottawa Carlton Detention
12. Thunder Bay Correctional Centre
13. Ontario Correctional Institute (Brampton)
14. Toronto South Detention Centre
15. Maplehurst Complex (Milton)
16. Central East Correctional Centre (Lindsay)

The ministry is focused on addressing service delivery challenges within the current institutions that will improve performance outcomes. There are no plans to expand at this time.

The ministry encourages Corrections Literacy Initiative providers to communicate with one another through, for example, a Community of Practice, to share best practices and lessons learned.

The assessment and selection of service providers were undertaken using service provider performance data and local intelligence inputs to ensure an evidence-based approach. The following criteria were applied in the process:

• Organizational capacity to deliver in-year, and time-limited essential skills
• Experience working with populations facing complex barriers to success, including Indigenous groups and vulnerable women.
• Experience delivering programming in correctional institutions or ability to develop the relationships needed to do so.
• Knowledge of the community, the local region, and its Employment Ontario
• Proven ability to meet provincial Service Quality Standard (SQS) targets; and to meet or exceed learner targets.
• Not on official review in the previous

Yes. If the service provider meets the selection criteria, they can deliver at more than one institution.

The correctional institutions were chosen based on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, lack of available educational/training-related programming, total inmate population, and high demand for programming based on inmate population. Priority was given to institutions with Indigenous and women inmate populations.

The annual learner target of up to 1,200 is based on the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s estimation that 20 percent of the institutions’ offender population would be interested in Literacy and Basic Skills programming.

However, the percentage of learners served at each institution differs based on class sizes in an institutional environment, security protocols, and service providers’ capacity.

If a learner leaves a correctional institution before completing training and wants to continue in the Literacy and Basic Skills program, the learner will be referred to other Literacy and Basic Skills service providers in their area.