The New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents
Raising awareness, promoting policy and practice change, and building partnerships to uphold the rights, maintain the relationships, and meet the needs of children impacted by their parent’s criminal justice involvement.
The NY Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents was launched by The Osborne Association (NY, NY) in 2005 to raise awareness about and safeguard the well-being of children whose parents are incarcerated. By bringing together City and State agencies and community-based organizations, the Initiative works to reform policies, implement promising practices and positively impact the lives of children affected by their parent’s criminal justice involvement. The Initiative uses the framework of the Children’s Bill of Rights (developed by the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, www.sfcipp.org) to address the continuum of criminal justice involvement from a child’s perspective, from arrest to reentry, and supports the maintenance of a lifelong relationship between parent and child.
New York, NY
Tanya Krupat
Program Director
tkrupat@osborneny.org
718-637-6560
Table of Contents
Policy Reform Goals
Accomplishments and Ongoing Efforts
What We Have Learned
Downloads:
- Initiative Overview (PDF)
- Recommendations for the Advisory Board to the New York State Governor’s Children’s Cabinet Regarding Children/Youth of Incarcerated Parents (PDF)
- S.U.N. Shine Newsletter, February 2009 (PDF)
Policy Reform Goals
The NY Initiative has several policy reform goals which are consistent with the Children’s Bill of Rights and the roadmap for criminal justice system reform which it represents. These are:
• To implement a child-sensitive arrest protocol in NY State, consistent with best practices nationally, which minimizes the trauma and harm children experience when a parent is arrested.
• To ensure that children and families are considered during the sentencing process by including a Family Impact Statement among the factors considered.
• To improve children’s access to their parents through visiting, phone calls and letters and other creative mechanisms that support the strengthening of the parent-child relationship. This includes considering proximity to children as a criteria for prison assignment.
• To increase the programs available for both children and incarcerated parents which support their relationship and minimize the harm that can result from parent-child separation.
• To increase the data and information available about children of incarcerated parents in order to better meet their needs and inform the policies and practices of agencies and organizations who come into contact with children and families.
• To increase the support available for caregivers in the community, including implementing Subsidized Guardianship in NY State.
• To infuse the agendas, policies and practices of government agencies and community-based organizations with an awareness and consideration of the needs and experiences of children of incarcerated parents.
• To build professional capacity around this issue so diverse professionals across fields have a core competency/minimum fluency regarding the impact of parental incarceration on children and families.
Accomplishments and Ongoing Efforts
In the area of ARREST policies in New York City, we:
• Examined and wrote a summary of national child-sensitive arrest policies
• Conducted two focus groups with parents who had been arrested and wrote a report based on these
• Worked closely with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office who worked with Brooklyn NYPD to implement training re: asking about children at various points at and following arrest.
• Met with Citywide Police Department Chief
• Wrote letter to Police Commissioner Kelly
• Working to offer supportive information and resources to families post-arrest through Citywide information hotline
92% of parents in prison are fathers; 8% are mothers. The number of children with an incarcerated mother has more than doubled since 1991.
In the area of VISITING and other forms of contact, we:
• Coordinate 2 site visits per year to model Children’s Centers and Visiting Programs in NY State (at Sing Sing and Bedford Hills Correctional Facilities) which are attended by diverse professionals.
• Hosted a teleconference presentation of model visiting programs in New Mexico and Tennessee.
• Wrote Televisiting Guidelines that were provided to the State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS).
• In partnership with NYC DOC, provide coloring books and crayons to city-sentenced fathers/ grandfathers/ uncles/ brothers when children come to visit them.
• Conducted brief training of about 40 Corrections Officers at Riker’s (they receive about 1000-1500 visitors a day and are a visitors first point of contact). Training focused on the importance of visiting for children and of positive Officer-child interactions.
• With the Incarcerated Mothers Committee of the Coalition for Women Prisoners (at the Correctional Association), advocated for a Family Reunion Program at Albion that was included in the 2009 State budget.
• Launched our “HUB Near Home” campaign to raise awareness of the impact of incarcerating parents so far from their children and to advocate for proximity to children to be considered as a criteria for prison assignment, after security and medical needs.
In the area of DATA COLLECTION and RESEARCH, we:
• Examined existing data on children of incarcerated parents, including its absence in national and local child well-being surveys/ measures.
• Conducted a Families Count Survey within a men’s and women’s prison and received close to 800 responses back from parents providing rich information about their children.
• Worked with our Statewide Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) to collect new data in some of its residential programs to identify, for the first time, which youth have incarcerated parents.
• Discussed with the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), NYC’s child welfare agency, the addition of a question in their database to identify children whose parents are incarcerated. To date, there is no way to gather this information.
• Contacted Christopher Mumola at the Bureau of Justice Statistics and author of the frequently cited report, Incarcerated Parents and Their Children (2001). He has been helpful in sharing his national data collection experience and in advising the Workgroup’s efforts.
• The NYU Wagner School of Public Administration students completed their report, “A Case for Counting and Tracking Children of Promise” in which they interviewed many City and State agency representatives, national experts and others to make recommendations for sensitively identifying and collecting information about children of incarcerated parents. The report’s recommendations emphasize services and support (and agency accountability) as the guiding reasons to collect this currently unknown information.
• Met with the Criminal Justice Agency (CJA) who interview every arrested person in NYC to discuss adding questions about the arrestee’s children. CJA open to considering doing a snapshot sample with additional questions about children that would not be part of their interview but would provide a wealth of data about a little known topic—the children of arrestees.
• Proposed to the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet that children of incarcerated parents be included in the issues under “disconnected youth” that they examine, and as a result, a Subcommittee made up of diverse State agencies has been formed to examine this issue at a Statewide level and make recommendations to the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet.
• Working with a State level agency to conduct focus groups with youth and caregivers to inform the annual Kids Count well-being survey conducted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
In the area of YOUTH EMPOWERMENT and LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, we:
• Recruited a small group of young people whose parents are incarcerated to participate on the Youth Advisory Board (YAB).
• YAB members participated in local and national conferences including New York City’s Sharing Success conference and the national conference of the Child Welfare League of America.
• Three YAB members were interviewed on WBAI radio show, “On the Count,” with radio host Eddie Ellis. The show focused on the impact of incarceration on children and families.
• Trained Guidance Counselors at middle school in the Bronx.
• Presented as part of national Bill of Rights teleconference training.
• Plan to conduct more outreach to youth organizations and train youth service providers.
• Built a partnership with the CUY School of Journalism to offer media workshops to the YAB.
Less than half of all parents (42%) in State prison reported having a visit with their children since admission.
What We Have Learned
1. Separation from a parent is always traumatic. This is true even if it occurs when the child/ youth is older; even if the child/ youth says it doesn’t matter; even if he/she appears to be thriving. This is true even when the parent removed or now absent was harming the child.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, parent-child separation, and other “emotional and cognitive disruptions” particularly in young children, “have the potential to impair brain development.” New brain studies have also demonstrated the impact of trauma on brain development. The impact of this trauma—particularly if it is silenced and/ or suppressed, i.e., unaddressed—can be carried into youth and adulthood.
2. Incarceration is not genetic. Although children of incarcerated parents are usually spoken of in terms of their own increased risk for entering the juvenile or criminal justice systems (the “apple doesn’t fall from the tree” theory), there is in fact “no solid evidence” for this assertion.
3. Many and varied experiences. How children/ youth are affected by parental incarceration varies widely- there is no single experience or response. Some of the significant factors that can affect the impact of parental incarceration are:
a. prior relationship with parent;
b. age and developmental level at time of arrest and incarceration;
c. how the adults/ caregivers in their lives respond;
d. the level of support and self-affirmation they receive;
e. the attitude (positive or negative) toward their parents; and
f. the level of openness and contact they are able to maintain with their parent.
4. Cumulative stressors: Many children/ youth with incarcerated parents have also often experienced numerous other stressors—parental substance abuse, poverty, multiple living arrangements/ instability, sometimes entering foster care—prior to their parent’s incarceration and so the effect of a particular stressor (parental incarceration) is difficult to tease out.
5. Children/ youth with incarcerated parents are like other youth. They experience some of the same emotions and challenges as children separated from their parents due to other factors—parental illness, foster care placement, military deployment. These emotional responses can include sadness, confusion, anger, abandonment, grief, distrust, loneliness, self-blame, searching. They also need the same resources and support that all youth need to fulfill their potential.
6. Children/ youth with incarcerated parents are different from other youth. The stigma a parent’s incarceration brings distinguishes a young person’s experience and makes this loss particularly complicated. The recognition of loss, the support and social rituals surrounding some other forms of parental absence and loss do not accompany children who lose their parent to incarceration, nor their families. The stigma experienced can be both personal and institutional (from agencies, providers policies, and systems).
7. Stigma can lead to lies from adults. In the interest of protecting children from the stigma and “guilt by association,” adults—even trained professionals—may lie to children/ youth about their parent’s whereabouts. This deceitfulness usually is discovered and damages trust. Young people who have been hurt or feel betrayed can carry this distrustfulness with them, leading them to distrust service providers, family members, mentors and others.
One study that examined this issue collected data from 54 children of incarcerated mothers, ages 2 to 7, found that, “children who were told about their mother’s incarceration in an open, honest and age-appropriate manner…were slightly more likely than other children in the study to have secure, positive perceptions of their caregivers.” (Poehlmann, 2005)
8. Visiting/ contact safeguards continuity of relationships and helps develop a young person’s sense of identity and belonging. While there are few studies that look at the impact of visiting and maintaining contact with parents for children, evidence from attachment theory research, divorce literature, work in the area of families separated by the military, and decades of children and young people telling us what they want and what was/ is helpful, support visiting and contact in the majority of cases. The therapeutic and lifetime value of visiting for youth– in all cases- should be recognized and explored.
For more information on the program or to find out how to get involved, contact: Tanya Krupat, Program Director, tkrupat@osborneny.org or 718-637-6560.