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.
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