Here you will find archived quarterly address from NRCCFI Director, Ann Adalist-Estrin.
Summer 2009: Combating the Silence
“Silence is dangerous when there is too much to be said. Only when we learn to speak well of the important, will we find peace in silence.” -Chinese proverb
I was struggling to write the opening words of a speech while eating my Chinese take out in the 4th hotel room in 5 days. I opened my fortune cookie. There it was “Silence is dangerous when there is too much to be said. Only when we learn to speak well of the important, will we find peace in silence.” It made me think immediately of the silences that are so much a part of the lives of children and families of the incarcerated. These silences happen inside and outside of their families. They are created by stigma and embarrassment and perpetuated by the judgments of society at large and by the child and family serving systems within the society.
The 2008 Report form the Pew Charitable trust tells us that 1 in 100 people in the US are behind bars. The Sentencing Project reports that 1 in 43 American children have a parent in prison and that there was a 79% increase in the number of parents of minor children incarcerated between 1991 and 2007.
Clearly the numbers of families impacted by incarceration are growing and so too are the number of organizations, agencies and initiatives that are serving them.
The new website for the National Resource Center on Children and Families of the Incarcerated at FCN is dedicated to promoting environments of safety and trust in systems, communities and families. I believe that children of the incarcerated and their families can better navigate the difficult and painful experience of parental incarceration with the support and services necessary for combating trauma and negative developmental outcomes.
Our new website corresponds to our 4 main goals:
Goal 1: To disseminate accurate information to combat the misuse and misinterpretation of data that increases the stigma and intensifies the silence.
There are no studies that say that children of the incarcerated are 70% OR 5 to 6 times more likely than their peers to become incarcerated themselves. These statements, seen everywhere, are causing service providers to hold on to negative stereotypes and families to retreat from perceived judgments that are also seen as racially biased. But we do know that parental incarceration puts children at risk for a host of negative outcomes.We need data to better understand the risks of parental incarceration, the causal patterns and the role of stigma and shame.
Our Research and Review section addresses the research needs in the field, share new and forthcoming studies and literature reviews as well as outlining implications for policy and practice.
Goal 2: To prepare, inspire and connect those working in the field as the unprecedented interest in understanding the needs of the children of the incarcerated leads to expanded programs and new initiatives.
The recent announcement from The Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Administration on Children, Youth and Families’ (ACYF) Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) of the means that there will be new and refunded MCP programs across the country.
They will join the ever-growing number of programs that are part of the Caregiver’s Choice Voucher Program for mentoring children with incarcerated parents and many programs that will be funded through a variety of Federal grants offered as a result of the Second Chance Act and the National Recovery Act. As services increase so will the need for training and for connecting those that are responding to the children and families of the incarcerated every day.
NRCCFI has led the way in training mentoring programs for working with children of the incarcerated. We delivered our 100th training for trainers to train mentors in Antlers Oklahoma in June and lessons learned from these trainings continue to inform our work with Mentoring and Non mentoring programs across the country.
I recently participated in the Second Annual Community Voices Freedom’s Voice Conference at Morehouse School of Medicine entitled Strengthening Families During Incarceration and Homecoming. This meeting brought together advocates in health care with those in Reentry Support to focus on the needs of the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated representing a first of its kind public health forum focused on families involved in the criminal justice system. Other new waves of focus on children and families of the incarcerated are in schools and child care, child welfare, mental health and law enforcement. The NRCCFI website is a centralized source of information about trainings in these disciplines. Our Resources and Training and Technical Assistance pages will announce Training opportunities as well as post a conference calendar and proceedings and notes from meetings and conferences that we have participated in.
When many of those that touch the lives of the incarcerated parents, their children and their families, come together to study best practices and share information , we are building the atmosphere of safety and trust that dispels myths and arms service providers with tools for effective services.
Goal 3: To guide the development of family strengthening policy based on accurate data and input from the families themselves as well as from “trained and inspired” service providers.
NRCCFI at FCN was the host organization for Dee Ann Newells’s National Bill of Rights for Children of the Incarcerated Initiative. The final report from this project is now available in Policy and Practice and represents a major shift in the context for public policy development. The Bill of Rights portion of our web site will be updated regularly so that site visitors can see the progress of policy changes in the more than 16 BOR sites nationally. The eight rights included in the Bill of Rights all reflect a fundamental belief in the importance of family and parent-child relationships. This concept often gets bypassed when policies for and about the incarcerated and their children are created. Perspectives that demonize the incarcerated parent at worst and ignore their value to the child at best are common. They combine with biases about “children being better off without their parents” and lead to restrictive visitation policies , as well as public policies that focus on the child without concern for the parent child relationship.
In January and February, NRCCFI conducted focus groups around the country to gather information from families and practitioners which will be compiled in a report on family strengthening policies for children and families of the incarcerated. Their concerns affirmed my observations above. An overview of the focus groups and a discussion about recommendations can can be found in the Policy Forum.
Goal 4: To include the families of the incarcerated in defining the problem and designing solutions.
I am continually amazed at the number of panels I am invited to be on, or conferences I am asked to speak at or committees I am included in, that do not include an adult child of an incarcerated parent, and/or a formerly incarcerated parent and/or a caregiver of a child of an incarcerated parent. FCN Board Member Elizabeth Gaynes says, “Family members are so often included as the warm up act or the sad story but never the experts.” And I quote her often because it is echoed every day, many times by the families we hear from and reach out to. Our NRCCFI consultants, advisors and Board members include formerly incarcerated parents, children of the incarcerated and their caregivers. Their input and feedback will be an integral part of the ongoing operation of the Resource Center and the website. They are also the key members of our Speakers Bureau Advocating for the inclusion of those directly impacted by parental incarceration in positions of power and influence in organizations, collaborations and convenings is critical to program relevance and success.
I hope you will use this web site over and over to find information, access resources and connect with others. When we all speak of what is important, we may end the need for a conspiracy of silence that keeps the children and families of the incarcerated quiet, invisible and underserved.
Ann Adalist-Estrin
Director, NRCCFI
June 2009