Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI) offers programs and services for incarcerated persons at 25 Illinois prisons and jails, and their families. It also provides services for previously incarcerated persons who are returning to Illinois communities. The programs include:

• Building Homes: Rebuilding Lives enables incarcerated adults and youth to learn construction skills as they create housing components for homes for low-income families.
  
  
• Community Support Advisory Councils (CSAC) in southern Illinois and Metro East St. Louis help people returning home from prison. CSAC also addresses the barriers people face to re-entry and collaborate with the community on strategies to overcome the barriers.
  
  
• Connections works with incarcerated mothers, women who are re-entering the community, their children and the children’s caregivers in the Chicagoland area.
  
  
• Justice Education provides LSSI staff members who teach classes entitled “Restorative Justice and Ministry to Those Incarcerated and Their Families” at Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
  
  
• Prisoner and Family Ministry of Rockford is a community-based program serving children, families and adults who are at risk of incarceration or have been in prison, and also provides prisoner visitation and leadership training. Resources for children and families of inmates include Buddy House, a support and resource center for children and families located in Blackhawk Courts, a Rockford Public Housing complex. Buddy House also sponsors a community gardening project at Blackhawk.
  
  
• Storybook Project works with volunteers who enable incarcerated parents to record and send a book to their children.
  
  
• Thursday Ministry works with churches to provide a devotion and craft day for prisoners at the Dixon Correctional Center. Pastoral Care is also provided at the Pekin Federal Prison Camp for Women.
  

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