Resources

• Children of incarcerated parents: Cumulative risk and children's living arrangements
  In 1999, an estimated 721,500 state and federal prisoners were parents to nearly 1.5 million children under age 18. In 1997, the year of the survey used in this study from the Joint Center for Poverty Research, about 2% of children of incarcerated parents entered the foster care system, while about 12% lived with grandparents or other relatives.

• Children and Families With Incarcerated Parents: Exploring Development in the Field and Opportunities for Growth
  Children and families with incarcerated parents not only face the trauma of loss, but also a range of economic and social conditions that result from incarceration. Concerned about the vulnerability of this population, the Annie E. Casey Foundation began an exploration of the nature and scope of this issue and the gaps that need to be filled. This report provides a summary of the Foundation's findings, a listing of the Foundation's recent investments in this area, and synthesizes the learnings into potential opportunities for the field at large.

• Parental Incarceration: How to Avoid a "Death Sentence" for Families
  This article from the Center for Law and Social Policy highlights a number of promising services and supports for incarcerated parents and recommends what attorneys representing or working with incarcerated parents and their children can do to minimize harm to children.

• Merging Local Data to Explore the Experiences and Needs of Children of Incarcerated Parents
  The Urban Institute partnered with organizations in Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Providence, Rhode Island to merge local and state level criminal justice and human services data to learn about children of incarcerated parents in their localities. This report presents findings from the three sites and a discussion of the possibilities and difficulties involved in merging and analyzing administrative data on this population.

• Hard Data on Hard Times: An Empirical Analysis of Maternal Incarceration, Foster Care, and Visitation
  The rising incarceration rates among women have raised concerns in many quarters, including child welfare. This report shows, for the first time, how many children in foster care have mothers in jail or prison. While Vera Institute researchers found that only a small percentage of the mothers of children in care are incarcerated for 30 days or more, the number of affected children is significant enough to justify programs that allow them to visit their mothers in jail or prison. The report also supports earlier research showing that the majority of women were incarcerated after their children were placed in care.

• Every Door Closed: Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal Records
  Each year, approximately 400,000 mothers and fathers finish serving prison or jail sentences and return home eager to rebuild their families and their lives. As these parents struggle to make a fresh start, they encounter many legal barriers that will make it very difficult for them to successfully care for their children, find work, get safe housing, go to school, access public benefits, or even, for immigrants, stay in the same country as their children. These eight two-page fact sheets detail the scope of the challenges these families face and offer solutions for federal, state, and local policymakers

• Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Bill of Rights
  The San Francisco Partnership for Incarcerated Parents has created a Bill of Rights for children of incarcerated parents. The document includes specific strategies that the child welfare system can take to improve outcomes for children who enter foster care or kinship care or are adopted when their parents are incarcerated.

• Working with Children with Parents in Prison
  This issue of Children's Services Practice Notes from the North Carolina Division of Social Services and the Family and Children's Resource Program, Jordan Institute for Families and the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, contains a number of articles on this subject as well as links to other resources.

• Prisoners as Parents: Building Parenting Skills on the Inside
  This handbook provides a guide to incarcerated parents, prison administrators and staff members, and child development and parent education professionals interested in developing and running parenting education and support programs for incarcerated parents. It also discusses the impact of incarceration on all family members, and the importance of considering that impact when establishing prison policies, developing priorities for funding, and delivering services to prisoners and their families.

• Behind the Glass Wall: Barriers that Incarcerated Parents Face Regarding the Care, Custody and Control of their Children
  This article from the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers focuses on the rights incarcerated parents have in regard to their children while the parents are in prison. It evaluates the fundamental rights that parents have in the rearing of their children, explores the nature of those rights as they apply to prisoners, and looks at the standard of review that courts use in prisoner's rights cases. It looks specifically at the rights that incarcerated parents have to visit their children and some of the barriers they have to overcome to prove that it is in the best interests of the child to have continuing contact with them, and describes termination of parental rights as the ultimate barrier that incarcerated parents face.

• Rebuilding Families, Changing Lives: State Obligations to Children in Foster Care and Their Incarcerated Parents
  From the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, this report highlights reasons to engage incarcerated parents and their children in programs to help support reunification. The authors offer recommendations to help balance addressing criminal behavior of parents and child safety to keep families connected.

• What We Know Now that We Didn’t Know Then about the Criminal Justice System’s Involvement in Families with whom Child Welfare Agencies Have Contact
  The Center for Social Policy and Research at the Jane Addams College of Social Work has published this report on children who come in contact with the child welfare system that have parents who are involved with the criminal justice system.
  
  
• Mothers, Infants and Imprisonment: A National Look at Prison Nurseries and Community-Based Alternatives
  This first-ever national report on prison nursery programs examines the expansion of such programs across the U.S. These programs allow incarcerated women to keep their newborns with them in prison for a finite period of time. The report, which is by the Women’s Prison Association, also looks at community-based residential parenting programs, which allow women to serve criminal justice sentences with their infants in a non-prison setting. The report finds that the number of prison-based nursery programs is growing, but such programs are still relatively rare. Though every state has seen a dramatic rise in its women's prison population over the past three decades, only nine states have prison nursery programs in operation or under development. Of the nine prison nursery programs existing or in development, four were created within the last five years. (May 2009)
  
  
• Eight Promising Practices in Programs for Fathers in the Criminal Justice System
  Between 1991 and 1999, the percentage of children with an incarcerated father increased by 58 percent.  There is more interest in developing programs that specifically address the needs of fathers in the criminal justice system.  A National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse brief authored by Child Trends,  "What Works" in Programs Serving Fathers Involved in the Criminal Justice System? Lessons from Evidence-Based Evaluations, identifies eight common features of "model" programs for fathers involved in the criminal justice system. (2008)
  
  
• Strengthening the Couple and Family Relationships of Fathers Behind Bars: The Promise and Perils of Corrections-Based Programming
  The National Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-Entering Fathers and their Partners research brief (ASPE/DHHS) describes the work of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-Entering Fathers and Their Partners (MFS-IP) grantees in delivering programming in correctional facilities. The brief documents challenges faced by grantees, including logistical barriers, recruitment problems, and challenges retaining incarcerated fathers in programming. (2009)
  
  
• Children of Incarcerated Parents: An Action Plan for Federal Policymakers
  This action plan reviews both federal and state barriers to identifying and serving children of incarcerated parents, and offers policy recommendations for the U.S. Congress and the Administration. The action plan is designed to help federal leaders improve policies for children of incarcerated parents, but also includes recommendations of value to states and local governments that can facilitate and complement federal initiatives and result in better responses to this population. (2009)
  
  

Resources from the States

• California:
  • Resources from the California Research Bureau:
    • Children of Arrested Parents: Strategies to Improve Their Safety and Well-Being
      

    • In Danger of Falling Through the Cracks: Children of Arrested Parents
      

    • Keeping Children Safe When Their Parents are Arrested: Local Approaches that Work
      

  • Out of the Shadows: What Child Welfare Workers Can Do to Help Children and their Incarcerated Parents
    This issue of the Reaching Out newsletter from the Northern California Training Academy is dedicated to providing information to help child welfare workers better understand and address the mandated responsibilities to families in which children are in foster care and a parent is incarcerated. Children have the right to regular contact with their incarcerated parents, and incarcerated parents have the right to continue to parent their children, yet accommodating these rights can be a real challenge for child welfare workers and foster parents.

• New Mexico:
  
  • Connecting Children with Incarcerated Parents
    This bulletin outlines best practices and describes the roles of caseworkers, judges, attorneys, court staff, and CASA volunteers.

  • Planning for Your Children
    A resource to help parents plan for their children while the parent is in jail or prison.

• New York: When "Free" Means Losing Your Mother: The Collision of Child Welfare and the Incarceration of Women in New York State
  This report from the Women in Prison Project of the Correctional Association of New York describes issues that affect the children of women who are incarcerated in New York State.

• Oregon: Children of Incarcerated Prisoners Project
  The Oregon Department of Corrections aims to improve the outcomes for children who are elevated risk for being incarcerated themselves. The website includes a guide for caregivers titled "How to Explain Jails and Prisons to Children."

• Virginia: Children of Incarcerated Parents
  This issue of the Virginia Child Protection Newsletter provides information on the number of children with incarcerated parents, the impact of the incarceration, and intervention strategies. Recommended practices are discussed for arrest practices, child placement, sentencing considerations, programs for incarcerated parents, and visitation programs.

• Washington:
  • Children and Families of Incarcerated Parents: Understanding the Challenges and Addressing the Needs
    This report summarizes the policies and services in each Department of Social and Health Services administration that impact children and families of the incarcerated, analyzes the strengths and challenges of those policies and services, gives preliminary recommendations from the administrations and CFIP workgroup, and additional recommendations based on identified needs and available research.
    
    
  • Working Effectively with Children of the Incarcerated, their Parents and Caregivers
    These video modules are designed to help social workers and other social service providers understand the particular needs of families with an incarcerated parent and learn effective practices in working with children of the incarcerated, their parents and caregivers. (2009)