Assisting Families of Inmates (AFOI; formerly Prison Family Support
Services) and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work.
The Milk and Cookies (MAC) Children’s Program is a specialized program designed to meet the needs of children of incarcerated parents and their families within a school-based setting. This program, developed and implemented by Assisting Families of Inmates (AFOI) in Richmond, Virginia, had an overall goal of serving 30 families within a two-year demonstration project period. Evaluation data reveal that the program was successful in identifying, recruiting, and providing services to 41 families (including 65 children and 45 adults) during this two-year period. Over 1300 services were provided, including intake/initial assessments, ongoing assessments/relationship building, individual counseling, group counseling/support groups, family assistance with concrete needs, mentoring and tutoring, and information and referral services. Data on the effects of the Children’s Support Group showed significant increases in perceived social support by friends and connection to positive cultural identity and significant decreases in feelings of secrecy and stigma. Teacher ratings of student behavior revealed improvement by 80% or more students in the following areas: appears happier, relating better to teacher, relating better to peers, more compliant with school rules, less frustrated, accepts suggestions/feedback better, improved overall behavior. School indicators showed improved grades for 29% of students in language arts, 14% in mathematics, 50% in social science, and 29% in science.
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The
Milk and Cookies (MAC) Children’s Program of Assisting Families of Inmates (AFOI)
represents a unique service designed to meet the physical, emotional, and social
needs of children of incarcerated parents and their families.
This program was named the Milk and
Cookies (MAC) Children’s Program to engender interest and enthusiasm among
children and reduce the social stigma that is associated with parental
incarceration. The MAC Children’s
program is a school-based program within Richmond’s Blackwell community; a
community that has been known to have one of the city’s highest levels of
poverty, unemployment, crime, and violence. The number of children impacted by
parental incarceration in the Blackwell area is quite high.
The school’s principal has estimated that almost 40% of the students
attending Blackwell Elementary School have one or both parents incarcerated.
Due to the high level of urban blight that had descended upon Blackwell and the neighborhood’s close proximity to a planned corporate development, the community became the recipient of a federal revitalization program called the Hope VI Project. At the same time, the Richmond City School Board approved the construction of a new Blackwell Elementary School, which was completed in time for the 1999-2000 school year. The first stage of Hope VI began in March 1999 with the demolition of subsidized housing that had been condemned and marked for replacement with new structures, both single and multiple family dwellings. Families living in the subsidized housing were given 120-day notice to vacate their apartments or houses and find other residences. The Hope VI plan calls for the families who were displaced to receive “self-sufficiency” services that will enable them to elevate their standard of living and thereby qualify for the new Blackwell housing. However, some have expressed doubt as to whether or not displaced families will have the resources needed to return to their community when that time comes.
This
mass exodus of families from Blackwell created instability among the elementary
school’s student population. By
the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year many families had been relocated to
other communities, which forced the school system to redraw school
jurisdictions; thus allowing empty seats at Blackwell to be filled and
alleviating overcrowding at some neighboring schools.
That year was truly a year of transition for Blackwell Elementary. It is notable that, while struggling to adjust to an
ever-changing number of students with a myriad of academic and social problems,
the school was successful at improving pupil test scores to a significant
degree. Today, morale among both
students and school personnel appears high and the focus for everyone in the
community is on their hope for the future.
The
overall goal of the MAC Children’s Program is to identify and work with a
maximum of 30 families with school-aged children over the course of a two-year
demonstration period. School
personnel, collaborating partners, and other community agencies that have direct
contact with eligible children constitute the referral base for the program.
The long-term evaluation questions originally included assessing expected
positive outcomes of the program in 6 areas: 1) children’s positive
psychosocial indicators; 2) children’s school success indicators; 3)
parents’/caregivers’ knowledge regarding specialized needs of children of
incarcerated parents; 4) children’s and parents’/caregivers’ level of
social support; 5) access of program participants to needed services; and 6)
knowledge/sensitivity among targeted service providers/ community groups
regarding the unique needs and strengths of children with incarcerated parents
and their families.
Site (Partner) Description: Assisting Families of Inmates (AFOI) began in 1978 as an outreach mission of the Second Presbyterian Church to serve the transportation needs of families with loved ones incarcerated in Virginia’s state prison system. The program operates with a full-time Executive Director, part-time clerical and support staff, and over 125 volunteers. In addition to visiting-day transportation services, AFI provides support group meetings, informational workshops, and individual counseling and referral services. Experience gained through many years of working with AFOI families provided the impetus for the development of specialized services for children of incarcerated parents. The MAC Children’s Program was designed to be staffed by 1 full-time Program Coordinator/Case Manager, 1 part-time Volunteer and Family Services Case Manager, and a cadre of volunteers. Administrative, supervisory, and clerical support services would be provided by AFOI. Primary funding for the operational and staffing needs of the MAC Children’s Program was obtained from the Jackson Foundation, United Way, Memorial Foundation for Children, and the Robins Foundation. Total funds received from these sources during the two-year demonstration project period totaled $93,159. Funds from the UJIMA Collaborative of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for African American Mental Health Training and Research ($2,270), and faculty release time from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Community Service Associates Program, provided additional support for evaluation activities.
Implementation of the MAC
Children’s Program involves collaboration with two additional agencies:
Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR) of Richmond and Communities in Schools (CIS).
OAR was primarily responsible for recruiting, hiring, and supervising the
part-time Volunteer and Family Services Case Manager who is responsible for
developing or coordinating volunteer mentoring services; support and
employment-related services for parents/caregivers; communication activities
with incarcerated parents; and transitional and post-release services with newly
released incarcerated parents. CIS
operates within Blackwell Elementary School as a central service broker and is
comprised of professionals from several area agencies (Family and Children’s
Services of Richmond, Weed & Seed, Children’s Health Involving Parents).
The MAC Children’s Program became a partner in this school-based team of
professionals.
The
overall goal of the MAC Children’s Program was to identify and work with a
maximum of 30 families with school-aged children over the course of the two-year
demonstration period. School
personnel, collaborating partners, and other community agencies that have direct
contact with eligible children constitute the referral base for the program.
Efforts during the first two years of operations have focused primarily
on 8 areas: public relations activities; identification and recruitment of
children and parents/caregivers; child and family needs assessments and
individualized service plans; support and recreational services for children,
including development of a Children’s Support Group; direct information and
counseling for children and parents/caregivers; referral of children/caregivers
to other service providers; service linkage for parents/caregivers for
employment skills training and job placement services; and advocacy and
community education activities regarding the unique needs and strengths of
children of incarcerated parents and their families.
Although plans for service in an additional 4 areas also took place
(support and educational services for parents/caregivers, including development
of a Parent/Caregivers’ Support Group; volunteer mentoring services; referral
services for newly released incarcerated parents for transitional and
post-release services; and communication facilitation activities between
incarcerated parent, parent/ caregiver, and child when appropriate), these
activities were not fully realized due to the inability of OAR to hire and
maintain a person in the part-time Volunteer and Family Case Manager position.
Parallel to program activities, a series of program evaluation efforts also occurred during this time period. These included: initial evaluability assessment and development of a Program Logic Model; development of 5 new service delivery forms; identification or development of 7 program-specific evaluation instruments; data analysis; production of a first year Monitoring Evaluation Report (program implementation and operations) and second year Process Evaluation Report (attainment of program objectives). The following provides a summary of the major findings from these two evaluation reports.