Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date May 13, 2005

Contact Kim Thomas, Executive Director
Telephone 707.421.7229
Email advokat@childnet.org

Writing Project Serves to Unite Children and Incarcerated Parents

Fairfield, CA – Thanks to a special project funded through California Community Colleges Family and Consumer Sciences Partnership Model Mini-Grant, incarcerated parents in Solano County now have a new way to communicate with their children about their time spent in jail – by writing a story about it.

The project, entitled The Ties That Bind: Bringing Incarcerated Parents and Their Children Together Through Book Writing, provided weekly classes from January to March of this year where inmates were taught about early childhood development and the adverse affects of trauma. The course culminated in the participants writing and illustrating two books for children. The books, Home Free and Mommy’s Big Mistake, were written by male and female inmates of the Solano County Jail and are now in print and ready for distribution.

At two detention facilities in Fairfield, California, there are 603 incarcerated parents of a total of 1053 children – 897 are minors, with 38% being between 0-5 years of age. With less than half of the inmates having any contact with their children, a program designed to bring families together in an educational and therapeutic manner was desperately needed.

The Children's Network and the Children of Incarcerated Parents Sub-committee of Solano County’s Child Abuse Prevention Council are pleased to have been involved in the Ties That Bind project, and will hold a brief press conference next Wednesday, May 18th, at 12:00 p.m. at Solano County Claybank Jail along with project partners from the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, Youth & Family Services, Solano Community College, and Solano County Health & Social Services. Copies of the two project books as well as additional resource books made possible by a grant from First Five Solano will be presented to representatives from the Solano County Jail, the Solano County Library, Child Welfare Services and The Family Resource Center Network.

For further information, please feel free to contact Rosemary Kennedy at Children’s Network (707-421-7229) or Pat Nicodemus at Youth & Family Services (707-427-6640 x202.)

For more than twenty years, the Children’s Network has provided a united voice for the children of Solano County. It promotes programs that support families, secures funding for children’s services, influences policy at the local and state level, helps families access services, and collects and publishes data on the health, safety and well-being of Solano County children.