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Insight Out'Insight Out,' run by Insight Prison Project's Founding Director Jacques Verduin, is a new community initiative from IPP that employs former life sentenced prisoners that were trained by IPP during their incarceration at San Quentin. These 'Change Agents' work with at risk youth in the communities of the Bay Area, especially Richmond and Oakland. The goal is to take what was learned during attending programs inside prison and apply it to the other side of the pipeline, where a disproportionately high number of youth are lost in violence and await incarceration. All our Change Agents are formerly incarcerated people that have been exceptionally well trained to teach life skills, emotional literacy and violence prevention skills. The initiative is designed to engage youth through the school system, youth centers and juvenile detention and probation programs. The focus of the work is to offer a skilful presence and engage youth to transform the negative behavior patterns that lead to victimization, addiction, gang affiliation and imprisonment. The idea emerged as a natural consequence of noticing that many of the prisoners IPP trained inside San Quentin ended up giving back to the same communities they once took from - many in leadership positions. It became clear that formalizing these efforts would become an effective and unique intervention in the lives of many youth.
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