Location Information
- Women's Residential Facility
- 1917 Hickman Rd
- Des Moines, IA 50314
- ph. (515) 242-6325
- fx. (515) 242-6328
- click for map
WOMEN'S RESIDENTIAL CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
OVERVIEW:
The Women's Residential Correctional Facility has been in operation since June, 1993. The Women's Residential Correctional Facility is a forty-eight bed facility housing female offenders. The facility accepts residents with varied legal status. Residents may be admitted to this facility as a condition of probation or parole, as a state work release resident, as an Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offender, as a Federal resident or a resident on pretrial or jail transfer status. A wing of the facility houses women with their children. This innovative program is unique to Iowa. It allows eight women a maximum of two children under the age of five, to be with them while they do their residential correctional facility time. This wing of the facility opened in May, 1994.
GENERAL INFORMATION:
Residents in all programs are required to pay weekly rent, obtain employment and participate in treatment programming. Each resident is assigned a PPO II or a Community Treatment Counselor upon entering the facility. The counselor handles the resident's employment, legal aspects, budgeting needs, specific treatment requirements, community referrals and interfaces with probation/parole officers and the Judicial system. The counselor does an assessment and is responsible for addressing many of the resident's treatment needs. The program requires residents to address criminal thinking/criminal behavior, substance addictions as well as other addictive behaviors.
The resident attends treatment groups weekly, as well as AA/NA/ACOA or other twelve-step meetings and other one-on-one sessions with her counselor. The programming includes a series of lectures on such topics as job seeking, stress management, AIDS education, nutrition, parenting, and domestic violence. The women also journal, watch treatment films, and learn cognitive skills while at the facility. The facility staff also makes referrals to outside agencies for aftercare or to address specific issues. The facility staff collaborates with numerous outside agencies.