Recovery Finance: Financial health and mental health after incarceration

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Project Summary People who experience incarceration and have mental health challenges are disproportionately Black and Latinx, and low-income. This group experiences disproportionate financial hardship regardless of incarceration due to racism and other forms of discrimination, with associated negative health outcomes. If incarcerated, financial hardship worsens, creating barriers to community reentry. Support is provided to help people with income from employment and/or disability benefits, but less attention is paid to aspects of finances including problem debt, poor credit, and barriers accessing banking institutions. These financial issues have a direct impact on health, create barriers to employment and housing, stress social networks, contribute to feelings of exclusion and contribute to recidivism, all of which are health determinants. Financial capability programs including one-on-one coaching and access to safe and affordable financial products can improve low-income people's financial well-being and mental health, especially when they integrate into existing services, and partner to work towards reform of laws and policies to address upstream causes of financial difficulties. This project's goal is to intervene at the community level to reduce financial difficulties of individuals with incarceration histories and mental health challenges, who are predominantly Black and Latinx. We will use Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods to achieve the following specific aim: 1) Change community level determinants that impact financial well-being and health of the target group by training existing service provider including: i) community-based financial capability providers to be able to address financial difficulties of the target group; ii) service providers along the criminal justice pathway to be able to provide basic financial guidance to target group; iii) financial institution staff to reduce discrimination related to financial consequences of justice-involvement and mental illness. We will also support community collaborations working for legal/policy reform that impacts finances of target group. 2) Use mixed methods to assess impact on community determinants, measuring integration of financial capability support into existing services, ability of financial coaches to support target group, access to financial products, attitudes, knowledge and behavior of bank staff, strength of community collaborations, and progress towards changes in laws and policies. We will assess impact on individuals by measuring target mechanisms (financial skills, self-efficacy and behavior) hypothesized to mediate the relationship between financial capability support and primary outcomes including financial well-being and other health determinants (employment, housing, social support, mental health supports, and belonging), secondary outcomes (health and recidivism) and mediators between primary and secondary outcomes (hope, empowerment, and mastery). 3) Assess the value of integrating peer support into community-based financial capability support for the target group by randomizing participants into two groups, financial capability support only, or financial capability support plus peer support.