Related Link: Recent Accomplishments

LITERACY CONNECTS INMATES & THEIR CHILDREN

Our Connecting through Literacy Incarcerated Parents, Children and Caregivers (“CLICC”) program will mitigate two pressing societal challenges: 1) the below average literacy rates of incarcerated parents and their children, and 2) strained, often destructive relationships among families whose composition includes an incarcerated parent. Children and family members suffer during the incarceration period itself, and then again upon inmate reentry, as the family must readjust to its new structure. Reinforcing the literacy skills of reentering inmates and their children will help to ease their transition, and help the family move forward successfully.

With inmates typically 200 miles from home and infrequently visited by their children, we designed a program that uses literacy training, reading and email-based discussions about books as vehicles to improve communications. Its broader goal is to heal strained interpersonal relationships in the process of improving the literacy and job-related computer skills of prison inmates, their children and their caregivers. CLICC’s premise is that the children of incarcerated parents must have their learning and growth supported by successful role models (e-mentors) who can provide stability and a positive learning experience. It is further committed to providing caregivers with adequate support and the incentives necessary to nurture the social and educational well being of the children under their care.

Our Project Partners

The partners in this initiative capture the commitment of national organizations and utilize their local chapters. These include Reading is Fundamental (RIF), Families Services Woodfield (FSW) and the US Department of Justice – Bureau of Prisons. The Bureau of Prisons has encouraged this project from the start in the belief that it can be replicated throughout the federal prison system. The pilot project described below will be expanded to a national model for the Bureau of Prisons’ 115 facilities, pending a successful evaluation process, because of the Bureau’s endorsement and support.

The program is truly a joint partnership of government, corporations, philanthropic organizations and individuals. Faculty and students at Columbia Teachers’ College developed the literacy curriculum materials. Volunteer e-mentors are being recruited from among employees and retirees at large Connecticut employers such as Northeast Utilities, IBM, Pitney Bowes, GE and Xerox. A training manual for these volunteer mentors has been developed by Literacy Volunteers of Stamford/Greenwich, and volunteer mentors will receive a 3-hour training course.

Danbury (CT) Federal Correctional Institution Pilot Program

Mentors will meet with parents twice a week at the Danbury Correctional facility ("FCI"). Parents and children will communicate by mail and through “TruLINC”, a secure e-mail system developed by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons and tested as a result of the CLICC initiative. The “TruLINC” e-mail system is the culmination of over 3 years of preparation and planning.

The pilot allows extended, constructive and secure dialogue about the books by the incarcerated parents, their children and caregivers. Such “discussion” will also provide an opportunity to work on writing skills. E-mentors will help to provide emotional and facilitative support, and to foster the parent – child discussions. Interactions will be structured in a family literacy curriculum that models good parenting and effective co-reading.

The 2008 pilot serves 30 FCI inmates and up to 30 of their children, aged 8-14, and requires 60 volunteer mentors. FCI Danbury houses low-security female offenders, a great number of whom have children living in different cities and states in far proximity from the facility itself. Participants will remain in the program for a 6-month curriculum cycle. While the pilot has taken longer than expected to initiate because of its complexity, our partners are in place and the concept has taken shape.
Evaluation and Measurement

Measured results will be used to refine the program prior to implementation in other locations. The CLICC team has been partnering with Mr. Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Larry Berger of Wireless Generation to develop evaluation tools that will measure the pilot project’s results. The initial evaluation of the pilot will be conducted in mid-course by students and professors at John Jay. We are also approaching Connecticut’s Department of Corrections to extend the pilot test to their Enfield and Niantic facilities.