Life-skills curriculum · Criminal justice & diversionary courts
Reentry, redefined.
The Phoenix Program brings peer-led life skills to people involved with the criminal justice system — delivered with drug courts, diversionary courts, and law enforcement agencies to build a real path back to housing, education, employment, purpose, and community.
What Phoenix is
The Phoenix Program is a life-skills curriculum offered exclusively by Young People in Recovery to criminal justice organizations, diversionary courts, and law enforcement agencies. It equips participants with tools to access the four areas SAMHSA identifies as critical to a successful life in recovery — and is built on the same peer support services model that powers every YPR program.
Phoenix serves as the conduit to educate, empower, and connect individuals to the resources they need to be successful on the other side of the justice system.
The 10-Module Curriculum
The same evidence-based life-skills core, adapted for reentry.
Recovery Messaging
Education
Housing
Employment (Parts 1 & 2)
Finance
Leadership & Empowerment
Healthy Relationships
Holistic Health
Neuroscience of Substance Use Disorder
How Implementation Works
YPR staff facilitate the program, collect data, and build community among participants — while local YPR chapters plug people into pro-social events, workshops, all-recovery meetings, and ongoing peer support.
Partner
Build, secure, and maintain a partnership with your implementation site.
Agree
Draft and execute the agreed-upon memorandum of understanding.
Staff
Hire and train the program implementation team.
Deliver
Ten two-hour modules, generally once per week over a ten-week cycle.
Measure
Collect data to evaluate the efficacy of the program.
Flip through the Phoenix workbook
The same evidence-based life-skills workbook, adapted for reentry — clear objectives, guided prompts, and exercises participants complete and keep.
This isn’t theory. It’s measured.
Participants report measurable growth across all nine life-skill pillars between intake and exit — evidence that peer-led life skills translate into real-world stability.
across categories
growth
intake to exit
Average growth from intake to exit across all program sites and offerings.
What participants walk away with
A path to stable housing
The single biggest predictor of successful reentry — participants leave knowing how to find and keep it.
Real employment skills
A two-part employment module built for people rebuilding a work history after justice involvement.
Education & second chances
Degrees, credentials, and financial aid — a realistic plan for what comes next.
Understanding their brain
A plain-language look at the neuroscience of substance use disorder that replaces shame with agency.
Leadership & empowerment
From participant to peer leader — the skills to give back to their own community.
A recovery community
Local YPR chapters plug participants into meetings, pro-social events, and ongoing peer support.
Bring Phoenix to your organization
Tell us about your court, diversion program, or agency and we'll follow up about partnership, MOUs, and implementation.