Notes from the Field

Children of Incarcerated Parents

For two years, Family Service Association of Monroe County has addressed the issues facing incarcerated parents and their children. When a parent is incarcerated, their kids face the trauma of sudden separation and they often experience fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, depression, and guilt. The behavioral consequences for these kids can be severe: emotional disturbance, failure in school, delinquency, and the risk of intergenerational incarceration.

Strengthening Parents &
Families Now for a Successful Future

Parenting and life skills education, contact visits with their children, and support services to families constitute Family Service Association’s Families in Transition (FIT) program. FIT views the family as an important resource for change. A collaborative effort of Family Service Association of Monroe County, Indiana University, and the Monroe County Correctional Center, FIT is funded by the Indiana Children’s Trust Fund. It is one of many programs across the country that has developed in response to research demonstrating a positive relationship between parole success and the maintenance of strong family ties while incarcerated.

Ninety inmates and their children and families have participated in the program since its inception two years’ ago. Seeking to go beyond what is offered in most parenting programs, FIT chose H. Stephen Glenn’s “Developing Capable People™” (DCP) program as the central curriculum. The important components of typical parenting programs (i.e. time-outs, toilet training, developmental stages, etc.) are included. However, DCP allows Families in Transition to expand on those components through the development of positive self-perceptions and life skills. DCP teaches inmates to foster in their children assets that strengthen important human qualities such as resiliency and self-sufficiency.

An unexpected but welcome outcome of the program has been inmate’s own awareness of the importance of nurturing these assets in not only their children, but in themselves as well. As inmates develop more healthy self-perceptions and effective life skills, they increase their chances of future success for themselves, their children, their families, and their communities.

No Glass Barriers – Family Contact Visits

Family contact visits are the centerpiece of the FIT program. Children are given an opportunity to have contact with their parents that is more natural and nurturing than visits behind glass. Kids can feel the emotional and physical warmth of their parents’ presence, if only for a short time every two weeks. They allow a child to sit on their daddy’s lap and draw or to get tickled and hugged by their mom. The visits also give inmates an opportunity to apply the DCP concepts they are learning in the program.

Families report that the contact visits are a favorite outing for their children. The excited and happy cohort of babies, toddlers, and older children seen in the lobby of the jail every other Thursday and Sunday speaks to the importance of these contact visits, even under trying circumstances. The inmates report more bonding with their families and renewed confidence that they can succeed as parents and partners.

For more information on Families in Transition,
Call (812)-339-1551 or e-Mail mhatlen@bloomington.in.us today.