Welcome - A Short Tour

The Community Room, what is it? A Resource Center for Former Offenders, their Families and for Advocates Assisting Them. But for Advocates it goes deeper and we will get to that in a bit:

TOURS for Former Offenders and their Family Members
How to get around the Community Room: Hard to describe, so lets try this, picture yourself entering a large circular room, a Community Room, and all around the walls are doors with signs on each.

Now, you walk up to the receptionist, she tells you to "Dump All Your Concerns Into This Basket," and as you do, you see them fall into tubes below the basket and disappear somewhere below the floor. Then says, please see that Receptionist, pointing to the desk behind.

OK, now you are at that desk, you hear, "OK, we have suggestions for some of your concerns, but others we need to do some research on, and it is possible -at this time- that there are no reasonable answers." Then says "Here is a list of the rooms to visit, behind each door are suggestions how you may resolve concerns you placed in the basket."

Thats how "Concerns" are addressed in the Community Room.

Now lets equate to reality: This blog is the Community Room, each of the doors (with Concern labels on them) are our Topic List (Look to the right, they are all there). If you click on any of those topics, it will be like entering one of the doors, and you will be able to see what the suggestion is to possibly resolve the issue.

Yes, that is probably an oversimplification of actual concerns folks have in their daily lives, however, the story was a way to describe how to get around the community room. We do know concerns are far more complicated. But, now you know how to get around the Community Room.

Topic List Tips:
You will notice some items listed in the topic list with a "(" before the explanation of that item. These are items that explain some aspect of the Community Room or explain an important definition. Following those items are actual topics (Topic: ___ ___) that suggest a resolve for a concern. A few of the "Topics" display "***" before the word Topic, these are concerns which are unresolved or we are working on finding a resolve. You may read them and if you have any thoughts about them, please send them to eAdvocate@gmail.com.

Finally, if you have a concern which we DO NOT show a possible resolve for, please let us know, e-mail eAdvocate@gmail.com. Once we hear about these we then assign someone to find a resolve so that the next time you come you will be able to see the suggestion.

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TOUR for Advocates
Advocates are critical to the Community Room. But, when a Advocate comes to the Communty Room, they come for different purposes:

A) Possible as a Consultant ready to assist in resolving some daily life need of a former offender;

B) Maybe they come looking for a resolution to a daily life problem, for a former offender that lives in their service area;

C) Advocates also come to announce, or push, something that is happening on their website or local to where they live. Here they will use "Advocate Shouts" that will be published in the "Whats Happening Today" message that gets sent to everyone that subscribes to the Community Room;

D) Maybe your here simply to resolve idle curosity, to find out what this is all about. If so, enjoy and we welcome suggestions to make this site better.

The first thing we suggest is, that you read "TOURS for Former Offenders and their Family Members" which will give you an idea how to get around the Community Room. That Tour should also handle how to find resolutions to daily concerns.

If you want to post a "Advocate Shout" please read "Policy: Advocate Shouts"

Lets say you already have something helpful to FSOs in their daily life, on your website or blog, and you want me to link to it. OK, please read Policy: Helpful to Daily Life Messages and let me know what it is so I can link to it. Visitors to the Community Room will be directed over to your site, its that simple.

The whole point is, that ALL Advocates -no matter where you reside- can be helping FSOs -no matter where they live-, if everyone participates in the Community Room concept. We encourage you to be an "Advocate in the Wings" to every FSO in the nation.

Advocates are a critical part of the Community Room, Advocates can help FSOs nationally. Whether that is in New York, Texas, Michigan or anywhere else in the nation.
Should Advocates have any ideas of ways we can make this Humanitarian Project better, please contact eAdvocate@gmail.com.

Thank you for particpating.
eAdvocate.(BACK to the Top Page)

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