Statements

Mission

The mission of BEST is to prepare incarcerated men and women for successful reentry. Successful completion of the BEST prison-based program reduces recidivism by integrating behavioral health, personal development, career-coaching, and connections to reentry resources.

Background

BEST was founded as a non-profit in March 2018 after a 4-year incubation period with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center as fiscal agent from May 2014 to 2018.
The genesis of BEST in 2007 emerged from BEST founder, Karen Vander Molen's experience on the Christ UMC Prison Ministry team.
It was evident that targeted programming to reduce recidivism should be a proactive effort while men and women are nearing completion of their prison term.

In 2013, Karen Vander Molen joined three other women at a Vanderbilt University conference about criminal justice reform. These four founders of BEST began researching and designing the BEST transformative and restorative curriculum, developing what became the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. BEST became Ms. Vander Molen's Master's degree project: to implement a curriculum that would prepare BEST graduates to overcome the numerous barriers that incarcerated persons experience when attempting to re-enter a society that holds very real restrictions and challenges. The goal was to reduce recidivism by at least 50%. BEST has exceeded that goal.

Impact

From 2015 to present, BEST accomplishes successful recruitment of BEST program applicants from three prison sites in east, west, and middle Tennessee. Application response routinely generates a pool of applications that far exceeded the "enrollment limit" of 20 persons for a class or cohort. With acceptance into the Cohort, applicants must agree to transfer to the local BEST program site: Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center (DJRC), formerly known as the Tennessee Prison for Women.

BEST has over 99 graduates who have transitioned through the 6-month program in prison. Recidivism rate of the BEST participants is 14% -- significantly lower than the state recidivism rate of 47% of the general prison-released population.

Since 2021, BEST has increased the behavioral health components of its core curriculum to emphasize trauma recovery in a peer support environment. Educational curriculum in financial literacy, personal entrepreneurship, and wealth-building is delivered by BEST volunteers. Not only are the lives of inmates dramatically impacted by the BEST program, our volunteers report great satisfaction of the investment of their time and talent toward collaborative reform.

Needs

BEST relies upon the donations to cover annual operational expenses for all phases of programming. The prison-based program requires a full time site director, a volunteer coordinator, and expenses specific to marketing and development efforts for our nonprofit.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Employment  - Employment Preparation & Procurement
Secondary Category:	Mental Health & Crisis Intervention  - Mental Health Treatment
Tertiary Category:	Education  - Adult Education

Areas Served

TN - Davidson

TN