After approximately 4 years of operation, the director and board members of Emmanuel's Hands felt that something more was needed. The case management and after care program was running very well. People were being assisted prior to and upon their release to re-integrate back into the community and many were successfully completing their parole time without further violations. 35% of those who successfully completed the program had not returned to prison after completion. While that may not be a very good percentage for most organizations, when you deal with recovering addicts, that is an excellent percentage.
In 1995, Diane James, volunteered to go through an extensive and involved training program that would take her back to Philadelphia for training. This training took nearly 8 months but when completed would allow her to offer a program to the Lehigh County Prison drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit which was still under the guidance and direction of it's founder, Rebecca Duke. Upon graduating the training program, Diane invited Becky to attend a workshop in Philadelphia to see what this program was about. Becky made arrangements to do so and after experiencing the program for herself, stated that she wanted whatever had to be done, get done in order to bring this program to the prison.
After many sessions with the staff and board of Emmanuel's Hands, the Choices Program was developed. Choices for adult began in Lehigh County Prison on March 9,1997. In the beginning it was heavily based on the program workshop that Diane had trained through. There were many good aspects about the original program and those aspects needed to be adapted into the Choices program. Since then the Choices program has grown and expanded a great deal and there is very little left of the original training program it steamed from. However, it is stronger and more involved, and at least as successful.
By May of 1997, Keenan House, a long term drug rehabilitation center in Allentown PA. contacted Emmanuel's Hands to request that the program be brought into their facility. The board and staff agreed to the request and staff members Diane James and Janice LeVan were the facilitators who chose to take on the task of presenting the program to the staff and residents of Keenan House. 2 of Keenan House's staff trained in those first session and by December of 1997, they had received licensing from Emmanuel's Hands to continue running the Choices Program at their facility.
In January of 1998, Northampton County Prison and Carbon County Correctional Facility both requested that the program be brought into their facilities for the residents. Facilitators Carol Tertel and Janice LeVan answered the call for Carbon County as this was close to their home. Facilitators Danny and Chrissie Gonzalez along with Diane James took the Northampton County Prison. Janice and Carol were now doing double duties at Carbon because in addition to the Choices workshops they also ran the Employment Education Classes there for Emmanuel's Hands. Also at that time Janice and Diane had approached officials at the Schuylkill County Prison to offer them the program however, the staff at that time had not been receptive to the program. In December of 1998 however, with a new warden on board, Schuylkill County sought out Carol Tertel and Diane James to come in and present the program to the warden, deputy warden and head lieutenant. The women did so willingly and after making their presentation were asked by the warden to set up a schedule and come in to work with the women's unit of the prison. The warden had been having a particularly hard time at that point with this unit and felt something positive could come from this. So, in January of 1999, Carol Tertel and Diane James, escorted by the warden himself, entered the prison and the women were brought to a room that would be used as the workshop room. With the warden's blessing, backing and support, some of the staff joined in that first session too.
In November of 1998, in the basement of Salem United Methodist Church, facilitators Mark Young, Carol Tertel, Danny Gonzalez and Diane James, held the very first community workshop of the Choices Program which now included not only adults but children ages 8 and older. Carol's daughter Rachael was trained in those first sessions and went on to become a facilitator and presenter of the workshops at speaking engagements. Danny's daughter Angela and Diane's granddaughter's Ashley and Jessica, and grandson Justin were also beginning their training in this first session. The children thrived in this workshop. Come Sunday morning, they did a presentation in church for the congregation to demonstrate some important lessons learned.