INPEP ECHO

About Indiana Peer Education Program ECHO

The Indiana Peer Education Program (INPEP) ECHO promotes health education within correctional facilities through peer-to-peer trainings and the Project ECHO model. The INPEP ECHO team equips people who are incarcerated as peer health educators, who then use their lived experience to teach health education workshops about unique health conditions affecting people who are incarcerated.

Peer Educators:

  • Develop their professional and leadership skills
  • Serve as a key resource for health information within correctional facilities
  • Partake in monthly TeleECHOs
  • Meet with a Peer Education Hub-Team member at their site

To date, the INPEP ECHO has trained over 200 peer educators at multiple Indiana Department of Correction locations. Peer educators have reached thousands of people incarcerated through their 10-hour health education workshops.

Partnership

The Indiana Peer Education Program is a collaboration between the Indiana University Indianapolis ECHO Center, Step-Up, Inc., the Viral Hepatitis Program at the Indiana Department of Health, and the Indiana Department of Correction.

Putnamville Correctional Facility, 2023.
Madison Correctional Facility Graduation: March 2022
The CDC's Viral Hepatitis Program visit to the Correctional Industrial Facility.
inpep logo drawing on a banner
Madison CF Logo Creation
The Indiana Peer Education Program (INPEP) ECHO organized an art show in partnership with Tube Factory in Garfield Park, Indianapolis, Indiana, that highlighted the peer educators and their artistry. This art show ran from April to May 2025 in the Guichelaar Gallery. Art shifts how we see and understand the world around us.  Many art shows by artists who are or have been incarcerated aim to capture their experience of being impacted by the legal system. While this awareness is important, the lived experience overshadows the expression of artists to show their craft, practice, and work. Illuminate brings to light the achievements and artistic talents of some of Indiana’s finest visual artists, storytellers, and sculptors.

Goals

  • Present Facts
  • Explore Values
  • Develop Skills
  • Eliminate Stigma

Facilities participating

  • Correctional Industrial Facility
  • Indiana Women's Prison
  • Madison Correctional Facility
  • New Castle Correctional Facility
  • Pendleton Correctional Facility
  • Plainfield Correctional Facility
  • Putnamville Correctional Facility
  • Rockville Correctional Facility
  • Wabash Valley Correctional Facility
  • Westville Correctional Facility

10-Hour Workshop Training Topics

  • Germs & General Hygiene
  • Tuberculosis
  • Diabetes
  • Staph/MRSA
  • STIs
  • Influenza
  • COVID-19
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Hepatitis A, B, C
  • Substance Use Disorders
  • Harm Reduction
  • Mental Health First AID & Trauma Informed Care