Portland, OR (PRWEB) June 12, 2017 -- As the new Director of Corrections Programs at Pathfinders of Oregon, Peter Madaus will be pursuing his passion for helping people change their lives and leave the criminal justice system. Peter will be supervising Pathfinders’ statewide operations within the Oregon Department of Corrections. In his words, “My passion is using effective interventions and supports to help people change their lives and achieve positive outcomes.”
Peter brings a breadth of experience in working to help people rebuild their lives. He started his career in Wisconsin’s Welfare to Work (W-2) and Foodshare (SNAP) programs, helping clients, many of whom were criminal justice system-involved, find jobs and the support they needed to succeed. He then moved to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families where he worked on anti-poverty programs and policies at the state, national, and international level. One such program was a transitional jobs program that focused on helping criminal-justice-involved fathers develop the skills and the means to support themselves and their children.
As Peter's experience led him to understand that helping clients find transitional jobs reduces recidivism, he became very interested in the array of evidence-based techniques that achieve this outcome. His steps along this path led to the Milwaukee County Delinquency and Court Services Division where he worked on two national reform initiatives: the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative and the US Department of Justice’s Juvenile Justice Reform and Reinvestment Initiative. These efforts created more effective programs and practices for reducing recidivism. Multnomah County is a model site under the Juvenile Justice Reform and Reinvestment Initiative.
When the opportunity arose to oversee programming for on-probation and paroled adults in Milwaukee County, Peter began working more directly with criminal-justice-involved adults. In his position with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Peter built a full service job center housed within the probation and parole office that used the US Department of Justice’s Integrated Reentry and Employment Services model to integrate pre-release engagement, community supervision, and cognitive-behavioral interventions with traditional employment program services.
Peter brings his holistic background in creating effective programs to reduce recidivism and provide people with a path out of the criminal justice system to his role as the Director of Corrections Programs position at Pathfinders of Oregon.
Mindy Clark, Pathfinders of Oregon, http://www.pathfindersoforegon.org, +1 503-977-6399, [email protected]
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