Apprenticeship programs in prisons are still relatively rare, but they may be instrumental in helping incarcerated individuals leave prison as better citizens, not better criminals.

Kentucky’s Justice to Journeyman apprenticeship program, based in seven of Kentucky’s correctional facilities, aims to do just that. Inmates in the program take classes and begin job training while they are still behind bars; they then graduate to on-the-job apprenticeships with employers. Participants also receive one-on-one counseling and help in finding housing and transportation.

At one point during the four-and-a-half years Jen Tarwater studied to become a teacher and completed two minors, she juggled four jobs—among them, serving as a student employee at her school’s Hispanic multicultural center and working as an entertainer on the Polar Express with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Train.

It wasn’t so much a matter of survival for the Fort Lewis College graduate, but rather a proactive measure to create a cushion for the months she needed to devote to student teaching.