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Outreach provides library service to meet the information and leisure reading needs of the residents of Hennepin County correction and treatment facilities serviced by Hennepin County Library.
Outreach serves the following facilities:
1145 Shenadoah Lane, Plymouth, MN
Hennepin County adult offenders who have received jail sentences of less than one year are housed in the Adult Corrections Facility. ACF is made up of three housing units: the men's section with a capacity of 395; the women's section with a capacity of 68; and the work/study release section with a capacity of 125. Outreach staff visit all three sections each Tuesday to deliver and take information material requests.
Courthouse Rm. 36 Minneapolis, MN
The Adult Detention Center is operated by the county Sheriff's Department and provides detention facilities for local law enforcement agencies. It is a 600 bed pre-sentencing facility and in 2000 booked over 49,000 individuals.
Library service here consists of a collection of donated and withdrawn paperbacks distributed to the eight sections of the jail on booktrucks.
14300 County Road 62, Minnetonka, MN
The Hennepin County Home School is a correctional treatment facility for boys and girls from the ages of 12 to 18. The facility includes administrative offices, a school, a gym, and a cafeteria. Intermediate District 287 provide educational services at the school. Six cottages house up to 120 residents. Books and magazines are delivered to the cottages once a month. There is a monthly visit to the library in the school as well as other activities as part of the Great Transitions Program.
The Great Transitions Program serves the young adult residents of the Hennepin County Home School and is designed to acquaint them with the public library and how its resources can help them make the transition from corrections back into the community. Components of the program include book reviews, author talks, and production of a 'zine called Diverse-City.
Great Transitions currently receives funding from the Alliance for Children and Families of Hennepin County through The Library Foundation of Hennepin County. Minneapolis libraries are also collaborators in the project.
510 Park Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN
The Juvenile Detention Center is where juveniles are held while awaiting their Juvenile Court hearing. The facility has a capacity for 87 residents. Library staff visit the facility twice a month with new and donated materials, and take requests from longer-term residents.
In addition to supplying books and other materials to the residents of the correctional facilities, Outreach also continues in the Hennepin County Library tradition of promoting literacy and the benefits of reading via authors programs, writing workshops and storytellers. The library also collaborates with ACF on the Read-to-Me program, which teaches residents about both the short and long term benefits of reading to their children. Many of the residents were not read to as children and did not grow up with experience of books as an important part of life. The Library is excited about involvement in projects that encourage a love of reading and learning.
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