A PRACTICAL REENTRY WORKBOOK
Ready for Reentry
Preparing for Life After Incarceration
Reentry starts before the door opens. Returning home means more than knowing your release date. It means thinking ahead about where you will stay, how you will get identification, meet basic needs, get around, find work, manage money, meet legal responsibilities, rebuild relationships, and handle what comes next. Ready for Reentry is a practical workbook designed to help turn those questions into a written personal plan.
Build your plan. Confirm what is real. Take the next step.
Purchasing for a correctional facility, reentry program, nonprofit, or organization?
INSTITUTIONAL & BULK ORDERS →
Coming Home Takes a Plan
Release day may be one date on the calendar, but successful reentry involves many moving parts. Housing. Identification. Transportation. Employment. Healthcare. Money. Family. Supervision. Legal obligations. Recovery. Basic needs. When several of those problems arrive at the same time, it can be difficult to know what to handle first. Ready for Reentry was created to help readers slow that process down, put the important information on paper, identify what is confirmed and what is still uncertain, and determine the next practical step.
A plan on paper gives you something to return to when life does not go according to plan.
Prepare for the Realities of Reentry
This workbook walks readers through practical areas that can affect the first hours, days, weeks, and months following incarceration.
Release Planning
Identify priorities, separate confirmed plans from assumptions, and develop backup options.
Identification & Documents
Prepare for the identification and essential documents needed to move forward.
The First 24 Hours
Think through transportation, housing, reporting responsibilities, food, medications, and immediate needs.
Housing
Develop realistic primary and backup housing plans.
Healthcare & Basic Needs
Prepare for medications, healthcare, food, clothing, and other immediate necessities.
Supervision & Legal Responsibilities
Organize reporting information, responsibilities, court-related obligations, and important documentation.
Transportation
Build a realistic plan for reaching work, appointments, services, and required reporting.
Employment
Prepare for job searches, applications, interviews, and conversations about an employment gap or criminal record.
Money
Create a working budget for housing, transportation, food, legal obligations, and everyday expenses.
Recovery & Positive Support
Identify healthier networks, potential risks, boundaries, and positive sources of support.
Family & Relationships
Think through rebuilding trust, setting boundaries, communicating clearly, and handling conflict.
Your Personal Reentry Plan
Bring the information together into a practical portfolio and written plan that can be used after release.
These subjects reflect the contents and planning exercises in the manuscript.
This Is a Workbook, Not Just a Book About Reentry
Ready for Reentry asks the reader to participate. Throughout the workbook, readers encounter planning exercises, checklists, scenarios, self-assessments and spaces for recording information specific to their own circumstances.
The goal is simple:
Don't just think about the plan. Put it on paper.
Readers are encouraged to ask questions such as:
- What is actually confirmed?
- What am I assuming?
- What must happen before release?
- What needs to happen during my first 24 hours?
- What is my Plan B if something falls through?
- Who do I need to contact?
- What is my next practical step?
Those planning themes appear throughout the workbook.
Confirmed or Assumed?
One of the central ideas behind Ready for Reentry is learning the difference between a plan that has been verified and one that exists only as an assumption.
You have communicated directly with the responsible person, organization, agency, employer, housing provider, or other contact and verified the important details.
You believe something will work out, but the information has not yet been directly verified.
A place to stay, a promised ride, a possible job, or an old phone number can sound like a plan. This workbook challenges readers to look closer.
Hope for Plan A. Prepare Plan B.
See how Ready for Reentry works before purchasing the complete workbook. The sample introduces the book's practical approach to release planning and gives readers a closer look at the exercises and questions used to turn general intentions into written next steps.
Preparing to Come Home?
Whether you are preparing for your own release or purchasing a resource for someone preparing to return home, Ready for Reentry provides a structured place to think, write, organize information, identify unanswered questions, and build a personal plan.
Need multiple copies for a facility, agency or program? Institutional and bulk-order options are available below.
Ready for Reentry
Preparing for Life After Incarceration
By D'Angelo Stefani
Paperback Workbook
BUY THE BOOKBring Ready for Reentry to the People You Serve
Ready for Reentry can also be considered by organizations looking for a paper-based resource centered on practical reentry planning. The workbook provides participants with space to work through their own plans involving identification, housing, transportation, employment, healthcare, money management, supervision, family relationships, legal obligations, personal support and other reentry needs.
Institutional and Bulk Ordering
Bulk-order inquiries are welcome from organizations such as:
- Correctional facilities
- Reentry programs
- Community organizations
- Nonprofit organizations
- Transitional housing programs
- Recovery and treatment programs
- Workforce and employment programs
- Libraries
- Educational and community programs
Need 25, 50, 100 or more copies?
Contact Haven House Publishing for institutional and bulk-order information.
Have purchasing requirements, a purchase order process, or questions about a larger order? Include those details in your request.
Institutional & Bulk Order Request
Interested in using Ready for Reentry with your facility, program, agency, or organization? Complete the form below and tell Haven House Publishing what you need.
About D'Angelo Stefani
D'Angelo Stefani writes about reentry from lived experience. After serving 13 years in federal prison, D'Angelo Stefani returned home and had to navigate the practical hurdles of reentry personally. That experience helped shape a straightforward approach to reentry preparation: identify what is real, ask the questions that still need answers, make a plan, prepare a backup plan, and keep taking the next practical step. Ready for Reentry was written to give people preparing to come home something practical they can hold, write in, and use while building their own plan.
ABOUT THE AUTHORYour Past Does Not Define Your Future
Reentry will not always go according to plan. A ride may fall through. A job may not work out. A housing option may change. Progress may take longer than expected. When something changes, the next step is not to give up. Check the plan. Ask the next question. Use Plan B. Keep moving forward.
Ready for Reentry: Preparing for Life After Incarceration
D'Angelo Stefani | Haven House Publishing
This publication is an educational resource and is not legal, medical, or financial advice. Laws, eligibility requirements, services, contact information, and program availability can change. Readers should verify current information with the responsible agency or qualified professional.