TRF to Present at American Correctional Association Conference

[Wandering Eyes]

The nationally-acclaimed TRF Second Chances Program will be recognized at the American Correctional Association’s 2019 Winter Conference Jan. 14 in New Orleans. The American Correctional Association is a private, non-profit, non-governmental trade association and accrediting body for the corrections industry.

Superintendent Catherine M. Jacobsen of the Wallkill Correctional Facility in Wallkill, New York will deliver a case study briefing to an audience of her peers at the annual conference of correctional facility professionals at 4 pm. Superintendent Jacobsen will be joined by Kimberly Weir, Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving and Chelsea O’Reilly, Program Development Manager from the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation to introduce the TRF Second Chances Program. The conference will take place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, January 11-15.

Celebrating 35 years of service, TRF Second Chances is an innovative Thoroughbred aftercare program that first brought retired racehorses to the Wallkill Correctional Facility in 1984 to teach equine care within the institution’s vocational instruction curriculum. With Wallkill as its model, TRF has expanded the TRF Second Chances Program in partnership with prisons in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, and Illinois. Among the hundreds of graduates from the TRF Second Chances Program, many have found employment within the equine industry as farriers, grooms, and stable foremen.

“The TRF Second Chances has been an important and highly beneficial program at the Wallkill Correctional Facility for 35 years,” said Jacobsen. “I am so proud to share the story of this program with my colleagues across the correctional industry, as I have seen the impact on so many men and so many horses over the years. This is the sort of program that truly delivers on the promise of providing ‘Second Chances.'”

To learn more about Second Chances and the TRF, call (518) 226-0028 or visit www.trfinc.org.

View the full article