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At the 2026 International Community Justice Association (ICJA) Conference in Columbus, Ohio, Renee Hacker, Director at Dismas Charities Manchester; Tawanda LeSaine, Counselor at Dismas Charities Atlanta; and Valerie Bagley, Chief Program Officer at The Change Companies, presented findings from an independent evaluation of Atlas in two residential reentry settings.
The session, Elevating Reentry Outcomes with Digital Programming: Evaluation Findings from Dismas’ Atlas Implementation, explored a question that is becoming increasingly important for community justice organizations: How can digital programming expand access to evidence-based interventions while still supporting the individualized, human relationships at the heart of successful reentry?
Drawing from an evaluation of Atlas implementation at Dismas Charities locations in Atlanta, Georgia, and Manchester, Kentucky, the presenters shared promising findings related to motivation, self-efficacy, relationships, emotional regulation and reentry preparation — along with practical lessons from the staff responsible for implementing the platform every day.
Looking beyond recidivism to understand reentry success
The evaluation was conducted by independent evaluator Dr. Steven L. Proctor and included staff and clients from the two Dismas locations, selected to provide both urban and rural perspectives. Participants completed quantitative surveys as well as 60-minute semi-structured interviews examining their experiences with Atlas and its perceived impact on reentry.
Importantly, the evaluation looked beyond recidivism alone. Measures examined whether participants believed Atlas helped them prepare for reentry, strengthen relationships, improve employment-related skills, manage anger, improve quality of life and, perhaps most importantly, increase their motivation and confidence in their ability to change.
Several findings stood out:
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90% of clients and 100% of staff reported that Atlas helped increase motivation to make positive changes.
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90% of clients and 90% of staff reported increased confidence in clients' ability to make changes in their lives.
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80% of clients and staff reported that Atlas helped clients avoid behaviors that could lead back to prison.
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70% of clients and 100% of staff said Atlas provided useful tools for overcoming reentry challenges.
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70% of clients and 100% of staff reported that Atlas helped clients manage personal relationships.
Motivation and self-efficacy as foundations for change
When conference attendees were asked which reentry outcomes mattered most in their own organizations, one theme repeatedly rose to the top: motivation.
As one attendee put it during the discussion, “If you're not motivated to change, you won't. So you have to be motivated to make the steps to do something different.”
That made the evaluation's findings around motivation and self-efficacy particularly meaningful. 90%of clients said Atlas both increased their motivation to make positive changes, and increased their confidence in their ability to change.
In the evaluation, one participant described that shift in especially personal terms: “It helped me start to realize I'm not a number … and I do have value to move forward in my life.”
Those outcomes reflect an important principle underlying Interactive Journaling®: lasting behavior change is not simply about teaching people what to do. It also means helping individuals identify their own reasons for change and develop confidence that change is possible.
Creating space for reflection and better relationships
The qualitative interviews also revealed outcomes that were harder to capture through standardized measures.
Parenting was one example. Although the evaluation did not include a dedicated quantitative parenting measure, the subject surfaced repeatedly during participant interviews.
“I never had patience before, but I have so much patience with my son now,” one participant shared. Another participant reflected, “I learned how much my kids value our time together. Even if it's just talking and laughing about everyday things, that really changed how I approach my kids.”
Participants also described journaling as a private opportunity to process difficult emotions. One explained that Atlas was helpful “when you don't have anybody to speak to,” providing a place to express feelings honestly and look back on personal progress.
These comments highlight one potential advantage of self-directed digital programming: it can give participants time and space to reflect between meetings with staff, while providing counselors with new material to explore when they reconnect.
Connecting assessment, programming and conversation
For Tawanda LeSaine, the value of Atlas comes partly from how it fits into the existing reentry planning process.
At the Atlanta location, residents complete a reentry questionnaire and SPIn assessment to identify needs across areas including substance use, family support, employment, education, attitudes and social-cognitive skills. Those insights can then inform which programming a resident receives.
Tawanda described meeting with residents regularly to discuss their progress across goals such as employment, family reunification and parenting. Atlas' staff-facing insights give her another source of information for those conversations.
“The AI insight is helpful to me,” she explained, because it summarizes participants' progress and provides possible areas to address during the next meeting. “I use that prompt as a way to get information out of the resident and see how I can help them.”
The technology, in other words, isn't intended to replace the counselor conversation. It can help make that conversation more informed and individualized.
“It's not a task. It is a tool.”
Renee Hacker offered the perspective of implementation from a director’s role.
Like many leaders introducing something new, Renee initially encountered a familiar reaction from staff: Here's something else we've got to do.
Her response was to continually connect Atlas back to the reason staff were being asked to use it in the first place: helping residents succeed.
“One of the best things that I love about it is, it's really not a task … it is a tool,” Renee told attendees.
That framing was paired with active implementation support. Renee learned the counselor workflow herself, regularly asked staff what parts of the process were taking the most time and looked for ways to address administrative burden rather than dismissing staff concerns.
She also demonstrated how Atlas flags can turn participant responses into opportunities for follow-up. A disengaged response such as “This is dumb. I don't want to answer this” does not necessarily have to be treated simply as noncompliance. Renee described responding with questions: Why? Is it making you think about something? Do you feel like it's wasting your time?
The goal is to use the response as the beginning of a conversation rather than the end of one.
Evaluation can improve the program, too
The presenters were also transparent about what the evaluation showed could be better.
Staff identified administrative burden associated with learning and managing a new tool. Participants asked for programming that aligned more precisely with their individual needs. Feedback also pointed to opportunities for more gender-responsive content and improvements to the sensitivity of automated flags.
Those findings are now informing continued development of Atlas, including efforts to better connect assessment, intervention and documentation; improve the contextual awareness of flags; make participant notifications more accessible; and expand individualized and gender-responsive programming.
That feedback loop may be one of the most important lessons from the evaluation: successful digital implementation isn't simply about putting technology into a program and measuring whether people use it. It requires listening to the clients and staff using it, identifying friction points and continually adapting the technology to better support the work happening around it.
Technology in service of the relationship
Successful reentry requires practical resources and skills. But it also requires motivation, confidence, meaningful relationships and staff who can meet individuals where they are.
Digital tools can help extend evidence-based programming beyond the counseling office, connect interventions more closely to individual needs and give staff greater insight into what participants are thinking and working toward. But their greatest value may come when they strengthen, rather than substitute for, the relationship between a participant and the professional supporting them.
The early findings from Dismas Charities suggest that when digital programming is implemented with that goal in mind, technology can create more opportunities for reflection, more individualized conversations and, ultimately, more pathways toward successful reentry.
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