The Certificate in Ministry and Human Services Program (CMHS) began in 1995. Following Congressional action in 1994 to eliminate federal college aid for prison inmates, New York, and several other states followed suit in 1995 and eliminated their financial support as well. As a result, all college-level education was eliminated from the New York State correctional facilities. Thousands of men and women throughout the New York State prisons who were pursuing post-secondary education as a means of improving their lives and the lives of their families were left without any means to continue their education. Many were only a few credits short of earning their bachelors degree. Earning a college degree offered a real opportunity to end the cycle of failure and despair that plagued their lives.

At this critical juncture, the Rev. Dr. George W. (Bill) Webber, Director of the New York Theological Seminary's (NYTS) Masters in Professional Studies Program (MPS) in Sing Sing, was approached by an alumnus of the NYTS Masters program who proposed that NYTS sponsor an undergraduate certificate program for the men in prison at Sing Sing. This proposal was embraced by Dr. Webber, who recruited volunteer professors and sought donations. Sr. Marian Bohen, Ph.D. was asked to be the coordinator of the program and was made available by her Ursuline community to do this volunteer work. Some graduates of the MPS program were selected to act as teaching assistants and mentors. With the cooperation and support of the prison administration, the Certificate in Ministry and Human Services (CMHS) Program was approved and operational in three months. The CMHS program was established to fill a small portion of the void left behind when college programs were eliminated.

Throughout the program's affiliation with NYTS, the seminary never provided funding for the CMHS classes. All funding was provided by private contributors and the Church of the Living Hope, an East Harlem church founded by Dr. Webber and ex-offenders.

As a graduate school of theology, NYTS could not issue undergraduate course credits for these undergraduate-level classes. But NYTS recorded the grades the students earned for the courses and issued grade reports. When CMHS students have presented their academic records issued by NYTS to undergraduate degree-granting institutions, they have usually been accepted and credits have been awarded toward a bachelors degree. Some CMHS graduates have gone on to earn bachelors degrees and masters degrees.

In 2003, Rising Hope signed an agreement with Boricua College, an accredited private college with campuses in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Under the terms of this agreement, when CMHS alumni enroll at Boricua, they receive full credit for all CMHS courses passed with a C or better. Also, Boricua will record the grades earned by CMHS students and provide copies of these academic records when requested by students applying for transfer credit to other colleges or universities. While Rising Hope, Inc. cannot guarantee that transfer credit will be granted, when a student's course grades are a C or better, they have usually been accepted by area universities.