Over the past 15 years, TJM has been seeking best practices ideas and strategies to better assist the female inmates who reside at the institution during their work-release phase of incarceration. TJM has recognized what other women’s correctional institutions are realizing: female offenders are vulnerable to recidivism and relapse if they are unable to support themselves economically through lawful employment. Unfortunately, while gender-responsive strategies for correctional populations have begun to flourish, work release programs have been left largely untouched by best practices and gender-responsive research. Building on its own data gathered from its female residents, TJM has developed a model of women’s experience in a work release program. The model is described as a transition phase in which women progress through several distinct stages on their way to successful community reentry. The five stages are identified as: adjustment, stabilization, destabilization, restabilization, and moving on. Having such a model increases female offenders’ chances of successful reentry because program staff will be knowledgeable in helping offenders cycle through the stages of stabilization and destabilization that threaten women’s rehabilitation. Work release programs such as TJM should serve as models in matching interventions and services to individual women’s needs. Figures, endnotes