Initiative

Social Service Consulting

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At A Glance

What: Community members with a history of incarceration help to re-imagine social services to be more relevant, accessible, and welcoming to people with a criminal record.

Why: Social service systems that serve people in re-entry are most often built by people who themselves have not experienced incarceration. Our partners hire PPC Fellows as experts on how to make services more effective and less alienating, and bring needed social services to our neighborhood.

Who: Community members returning from incarceration, social service providers, lawyers, nonprofits, other justice system stakeholders.

How: We partner with agencies across the city to offer social service consulting. Contact us to learn more. Our regular programs include Walk-in Re-entry Services and Expungement Clinics.

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Ongoing Social Service Initiatives

Walk In Re-entry Services (WIRES)
5:30-7:30 P.M., 2558 Germantown Ave

In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Goldring Reentry Initiative, The PPC holds WIRES (Walk In Reentry Service) every Tuesday in our storefront. Penn-trained social workers support community members in finding free services, replacing lost IDs, connect with job opportunities and re-establish their footing after incarceration. The goal is to create social services that don’t feel like the typical cold and potentially dehumanizing type people are often unfortunately used to, but thoughtful, patient services in a beautiful space where you’re greeted by peers and most likely a hug.

Arts-based Expungement Clinics

Visit our Events page to find upcoming clinics.

The People’s Paper Co-op partners with volunteer lawyers to present free criminal record expungement clinics where participants clear or clean up their criminal records. PPC brings art-making into the clinics, transforming them into stages for organizing.

After participants meet with a lawyer and receive a copy of their old record, they’re invited to shred their record, pulp it in a blender, and make a new sheet of paper.

Onto this sheet, the participants then embed a Polaroid portrait of themselves and complete the statement, “Without my record I am…” These reverse mugshots are woven into a giant paper mural, which has been used as an organizing tool around the state.

Expungement Clinics featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer

“Co-op puts lives on track while helping to expunge records”

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