Children of Incarcerated Parents

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—chapter three— GETTING AMACHI UP AND RUNNING By November 2000, Amachi was ready to move from planning to implementation.There was much to do. P/PV staff had to identify children who were eligible for Amachi and obtain permission from their parents and caregivers for them to enroll in the program.They also had to recruit pastors who would agree to have their churches sign-on as partners and, in turn, recruit volunteer mentors from their congregations. Finally, BBBS staff would have to screen and train the volunteers and match them with the children. While this process moved relatively quickly, there were obstacles along the way. Amachi planners were convinced they had a strong program and a compelling message. But, at least early on, they struggled to find the most direct avenues for both locating the children and connecting with the pastors. Once P/PV staff found the most effective approaches, they were able to rapidly recruit pastors and large numbers of volunteers and children. In fact, the numbers were so large that they created their own roadblock: they overwhelmed the resources available for screening the volunteers and matching them with children so the mentoring relationships could begin. GETTING AMACHI UP AND RUNNING 13
LOCATING AND ENROLLING THE CHILDREN In a typical BBBS program, a parent or guardian contacts the agency to request a mentor for her child. But Amachi was targeting precisely those children whose parents or other caregivers had such stressful lives that they were unlikely to learn about and refer their children to a mentoring program.Thus, one early task was to identify, locate, and enroll children who were eligible for Amachi.This proved, at least initially, to be a challenge.The children of incarcerated parents are, after all,“invisible,” and, in many cases, their lives are transient as they are moved from one caregiver to another. P/PV staff went through a trial-and-error process to develop a strategy for identifying the children. It quickly became clear that agencies and institutions were reluctant to participate in the recruiting. An effort to work through Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services, whose clients include thousands of at-risk children and youth, was unsuccessful because the agency did not specifically identify children of inmates during its intake process. And even when it knew of such children, it would not reveal their names because of concerns about confidentiality. Conversations with some of the pastors whose congregations would become involved with Amachi indicated that they, too, did not wish to participate in identifying the children.While their churches were located in areas where large numbers of these children lived, the pastors did not know which children who came for worship services or weekday programs had parents who were incarcerated. And they were reluctant to publicly ask for names from their congregation members because they felt it could stigmatize the children and their families. As a result of these experiences, P/PV staff decided to go directly to the prisons to try to obtain the names of inmates’ children.While this ultimately proved to be an effective strategy, there was a further process of trial-and-error before they were able to connect with the prison personnel who could provide access to the inmates. Focusing on the Philadelphia Prison System, the Amachi director, Rev. Goode, initially contacted prison chaplains at five local jails and asked for their help. However, the chaplains had been involved with previous efforts to work with families of inmates, and those efforts had been unsuccessful. Fearing a repeat, and also concerned about confidentiality, they were reluctant to provide direct help. 14 AMACHI
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Turning the Improbable Into the Exc
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6. 1 We disseminate Quarterly publi
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overwhelming amount of stress and c
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incarcerated parents to foster the
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causality, researchers have found a
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pregnancies leading to greater divo
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there has been a 13% decline in int
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to 90% of all US families. Accordin
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conciseness what 'everyone knew': t
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had contributed to apparent lower a
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ule of anthropology: That in all kn
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consequence of the social bias wome
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Sexual Violence A form of sexual vi
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Measures of Poverty An important as
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and have adequate shelter can make
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statistically determine the impover
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Policies Decision-Making Power Deci
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to parent teacher conferences. A re
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Also notable regarding the rise in
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Interestingly, the United States is
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women entered the workforce, divorc
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Page 99 and 100: THE MODEL Drawing on research on ef
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Page 146 and 147: Table of Contents I. Introduction.
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• Pre-service training for all ne
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IV. Refining the Partnership The in
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• Interest & ability to conduct m
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The Center for Children of Incarcer
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Ch i l d r e n o f In c a rc e r at
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Ch i l d r e n o f In c a r c e r a
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Advocacy Foundation Publishers The
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XVI for Drug-Free Communities Landm
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Vol. VIII 2022 ComeUnity ReEngineer
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Vol. XV 2029 Inner-Cities Revitaliz
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The e-Advocate Monthly Review 2018
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The e-Advocate Journal of Theologic
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Issue Title Quarterly Vol. I 2015 I
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The e-Advocate Juvenile Justice Rep
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2018 - The Theological Law Firm Aca
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www.TheAdvocacyFoundation.org Page
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