Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon, Jr. wants to remind residents about the great resources available at the Sheriff’s Transition and Re-entry Team (START) Resource Center on the grounds of the Yaphank Jail. The START Resource Center offers a range of practical transitional services for people leaving the county jail, including employment assistance, connections to housing, treatment and mental healthcare, clothing, food, pandemic advice, and so much more. It also serves anyone with previous justice-system involvement. It is staffed by correction officers and human service volunteers from the non-profit community. The START Resource Center has been in operation since February of 2020, and in that time, it has helped more than 170 individuals.
The creation of the Resource Center, which is a highly unique and innovative model, had long been a goal of Sheriff Toulon’s. It was developed based on his experiences working for more than 30 years in the field of law enforcement and corrections. “When I was a young child, I asked my father, a warden on Riker’s Island, what he did for a living. He said, ‘We rehabilitate people.’ That stuck with me throughout my 30 year career in law enforcement and creating this Resource Center is the realization of a lifelong dream to send people back into the community with the tools they need to be productive members of society.”
The START Resource Center is located at 200 Glover Drive in Yaphank. Appointments may be made by calling 631-852-5391. It can also be found on Facebook and Instagram @theSTARTcenter.