For select inmates in California state prisons, admittance into the Offender Mentor Certification Program is a chance at redemption. The selective program offers certification in drug and alcohol counseling and a chance for inmates to mentor their peers. LA Times public health reporter Emily Alpert Reyes wrote about 20 men in LA County who were given access to this life-changing opportunity. She joined Lisa McRee on “LA Times Today.”

Alpert-Reyes explained the basics of the program. 

“It gives people training so that they can actually get certified by the state as drug and alcohol addiction counselors,” she said. “They also learn the same things that any certified addiction counselor would learn. They learn about neurobiology, they learn pharmacology, ethics and the law. They learn about relapse prevention. It’s a very demanding program. Some of the prison staff compared it to basically a full-time job.”

Inmates must apply and write an essay in order to get into the program. Alpert-Reyes attended the recent graduation ceremony for participants and talked about the impact the program had on them. 

“After the ceremony concluded, I got to walk around and talk to folks, and I was just really amazed with some of the things that they said to me. There was one graduate, Richard Teer, who expressed just how excited he was about eventually coming back to work in prison as a counselor, and that was what he really wanted to do. And he said, ‘it’s amazing that even though I’m in prison, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life,’” she shared.

The program at the state prison in Lancaster marked the first time it was conducted in such a high-security prison, and the first in LA County. It could expand even further in the future.

“It’s already expanded significantly throughout the state. After our story published in The Times, actually, I got a message from a prison official in Virginia asking about it. So I think that there’s certainly a lot of interest in, could this model work well elsewhere as well?” Alpert-Reyes said.

Watch the full interview above.

Watch “LA Times Today” at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.