The DadTalk blog features insights from dads and Responsible Fatherhood practitioners from around the country. Its goal is to start conversations about important issues surrounding fatherhood and programs for fathers today.
This Father's Day President Obama kicked off the Year of Strong Fathers, Strong Families as part of his Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. It's an effort with partners from around the nation to create simple opportunities for dads and kids to…
My parents were teenagers when they had me. An only child, I grew up feeling like I was a mistake because of the stories I heard. Neither of my parents had the skills, knowledge, or wherewithal to parent successfully. They could not provide the parental, economic, or household stability a child needs to flourish. Nonetheless, my mother, despite her age, the damage she survived, and lack of resources, did her best. My father’s story was different. He was incarcerated on and off from the time he was a juvenile. By the time I was born, he had already developed an addiction to alcohol and…
Having a parent in jail or prison can harm children’s emotional and physical wellbeing, so it is important to support the more than five million U.S. children who will have an incarcerated parent (most often a father) at some point in their childhood.
One way to support these children is to help improve their relationships with their incarcerated parent…
“When we talk about a child losing a parent to incarceration and we are interpreting the ACES [adverse childhood experiences] literature only through a child maltreatment lens, the meaning that gets made (intentionally or not) is that children of incarcerated parents are maltreated children, harmed by their parents and thus better off without them. If, however, the parents who are in prison or jail are seen as potential supports for these children, as buffers from the toxicity of the stress, then a different meaning is made of the loss. It becomes more profound and less dismissible.” – Ann…
The number of fathers in U.S. jails and prisons has increased four-fold since 1980. Ninety-two percent of the more than 800,000 incarcerated parents in federal and state prisons are fathers. Each year, nearly 700,000 prisoners are released from state and federal facilities, and many more are cycled through local jail facilities. As they return to their families and communities, they may face challenges in various areas, such as establishing and maintaining healthy relationships, acquiring relevant job skills, obtaining employment, locating safe and stable housing, managing child support…
The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently released Focus,with six articles that examine the issues of paternal incarceration and its affects on fathers and their children during and after imprisonment. The issue of parental incarceration is of great concern for several reasons. First and foremost is the sheer numbers: On any given day in America, it is estimated that more than 1.7 million children under 18 years old have a parent incarcerated in a state (52%) or federal prison (63%)—91% of all incarcerated parents are fathers.1…
In addition to the obstacles that almost all former offenders are faced with, men who have children encounter an especially difficult set of hurdles, when reentering society. As someone who has worked on the issue of re-entry in numerous capacities, and as the older sister of three brothers who have been incarcerated, I have developed a deeper understanding of the supports needed by these fathers to help them succeed as parents, both during and after incarceration.
Although it is often disheartening to see how often the policy lags behind the realities of what men face when trying…
The effects of incarceration are felt far beyond prison walls. New research estimates that more than 5 million children, or 7% of all children in the United States, have had a parent in prison at some point during their childhood. Every year more than 600,000 individuals return to our neighborhoods after serving time in federal and state prisons and another 11.4 million cycle through local jails. Though every family’s story is different, many justice-involved…
Ed. note: This blog originally appeared in the ACF Family Room Blog. Read the original post here.
What kinds of services, programs, and activities can assist fathers and their families as they move from prison back to the community? Grantees working with ex-prisoners provide insights as to how to deliver services to these men.
Our…
Ed. Note: This highlight is a repost from a series entitled Highlights from the Field: Office of Family Assistance Programs at Work for American Families from the Office of Family Assistance Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Technical Assistance Project. Read the original posting here.
Rubicon For more than 30 years, fathers and families throughout the San Francisco Bay Area of California have received timely employment and social support services. They have increased their economic stability and…
Each year more than half a million prisoners are released back into communities. Many of these face significant employment barriers, substance abuse and mental health challenges that reduce their ability to smoothly transition back into society. As a result, the criminal justice system seems like a revolving door of re-arrest, imprisonment, release to community and re-arrest. Given the challenges faced by newly released individuals, coordinated services aimed at reducing recidivism and increasing economic independence are crucial.
Funded by the Administration for Children and…