Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: January 30, 2006

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 the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation Community Grant, children of incarcerated parents in Solano County will now have a new way to communicate with their parents about the impact of parental-child separation and loss when one or both parents are incarcerated – by writing a story about it.

This $3000 community grant will allow for the implementation of Phase II of a project entitled “The Ties That Bind” Project, Bringing Incarcerated Parents and Children Together….Through Book Writing. The project seeks to address the disruption of the parent-child relationship and the impact of parental-child separation and loss when one or both parents are incarcerated. Phase I, completed in April 2005 focused on incarcerated parents and resulted in the creation of two books, one written by male inmates entitled “Home Free” and one written by female inmates entitled “Mommy’s Big Mistake”.

Phase II entitled, “Voices of Children of Incarcerated Parents” will work specifically with children to utilize the books written by the parents in jail to assist groups of children throughout Solano County in embarking on a similar process that will focus on eliciting their feelings and at being separated from their parent. The work of these children’s groups will also be compiled and assembled into a written/pictorial collection entitled Voices of Children of Incarcerated Parents.

This project is a collaborative partnership between the Early Childhood Education Program at Solano Community College serving childcare providers, the Jail-based Outreach Program through Youth & Family Services which facilitates nurturing parenting programs and support groups for incarcerated parents; the Solano County Sheriff’s Department and Jails; Solano County Child Protective Services serving clients who are incarcerated and have children in out of home placement (foster and kinship care). Also involved in the planning process is the Child Abuse Prevention Council’s Children of Incarcerated Parents Sub-committee, facilitated by the Children’s Network.

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 be presented with a check for $3000 from the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation on Monday, January 30, 2006 at 12:00 p.m. at the Solano County Administration Building at the monthly meeting of the Child Abuse Prevention Council.

Also at the same meeting the Children of Incarcerated Parents Sub-committee will be presenting a certificate of recognition and appreciation to Fairfield Barnes & Noble for selecting Solano County’s children of incarcerated parents as recipients of their holiday book donation campaign.

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 x 202.)

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.