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| Giving dads their day |
| By Ann Coppola, News Reporter |
| Published: 06/18/2007 |
Does your facility ask its male inmates if they have children? Not all jails and prisons do, which means they overlook an issue that impacts the children’s risk of incarceration and the father’s chances of recidivism. However, more and more states are now focusing resources on incarcerated fathers, and the InsideOut Dad program, created by the non-profit National Fatherhood Initiative is spearheading the effort. NFI uses public awareness campaigns, research and educational programs to increase the number of children who have responsible, involved fathers. NFI President Roland Warren, who grew up without a father, says when the organization was founded in 1994 it saw correctional facilities as a promising starting point for their work. “A lot of inmates are fathers and the vast majority of them grew up without fathers,” Warren says. “We saw this as a key area and in many ways an underserved one. So many guys in low income communities are in and out of correctional facilities, and it greatly impacts those communities. We thought corrections programming would be a great on-ramp to start reducing recidivism and breaking the intergenerational crime link.” InsideOut Dad evolved from NFI’s first corrections program Long Distance Dad, which started in 1998 and grew to 250 facilities in 36 states across the country. InsideOut Dad, now nearly a year old, is implemented in close to 100 facilities. The new curriculum teaches twelve core topics that not only focus on what it means to be a good father, but also on each inmate’s “father history.” “We help them first of all to deal with their own personal issues,” explains NFI associate director of corrections programming Christophe Beard. “Understanding their relationship with their own father and perhaps how that played a role in them becoming incarcerated in the first place, is crucial.” “That’s why it’s called InsideOut Dad,” Warren adds, “we start by working on the inside.” This message has persuaded more and more state DOCs to implement InsideOut Dad at their adult male facilities. “Indiana has standardized all of their fatherhood curricula, and they’re planning a three year in-depth research study to track men as they go through the fatherhood program, through parole and reentry,” Beard explains. “Iowa and the District of Columbia have also standardized their fatherhood programming. Maryland is getting ready to bring InsideOut Dad to four different facilities, and they’re looking at standardizing as well.” The private corrections industry is also turning to the curriculum. “Geo Group, a private corrections company, has instituted InsideOut as the fathering program in their facilities,” Beard adds. “Currently ten of their sites are becoming ‘resource centers’ for fathers as they partner with NFI.” The blossoming standardization movement and intensified focus on the issue of fatherhood and incarceration has grown due to a groundswell of community and political concern. “There are a couple of things motivating it,” says Warren. “First is the need to stop the intergenerational crime cycle. There have been positive steps in the administration in Washington focusing on mentoring children who have incarcerated parents. There’s also an increasing awareness of the impact effective parenting has on kids. Also, the Second Chance Act has different senators talking about ways to reduce recidivism by teaching parenting skills based on a curriculum. It’s a tipping point: we have people starting to be very concerned.” The Second Chance Act of 2007, a bill now working its way through Congress, proposes to reduce recidivism in many ways, one of which includes working to strengthen families. Standardizing with InsideOut Dad can be one way for state DOCs to send the message that they are serious about improving resources for incarcerated fathers and their families. “Indiana has really taken on this challenge,” says Beard. “They want to be a trendsetter and want to pilot for the nation standardized re-entry programming.” The state received a $3,000 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to help implement the program in all male facilities. After the first session where the Pendleton Correctional Industrial Facility graduated nineteen inmates, 142 inmates signed up for the new classes, which created a waiting list. “The response was much more overwhelming than I anticipated. I was very surprised,” says Correctional Industrial Facility Superintendent Tom Hanlon. He thinks Indiana is doing the right thing by standardizing its curriculum. “Model programs are important for all of us. If we have a good model, be it here or any of the sister facilities, and use that as a benchmark, we won’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel and we’ll have proven results. Also, if an offender here is involved in the Inside/Out Dad program and has to be transferred, they can step right in and not have to retake classes or anything.” Indiana will also use the DHHS grant to pilot kid-friendly visitation rooms in four of its facilities. The rooms are brightly colored with murals painted by the inmates and filled with books for kids to look at with their dad. This kind of innovation is exactly what Warren hopes to see take-off across the country. “At this standpoint we’d love to see every state DOC work on bringing more resources for men around this issue,” he says. “I was meeting with the Superintendent of Corrections in New York and we were talking about the fact that some states, as part of intake process, don’t even ask them if their fathers. Women are always asked if they’re pregnant or mothers, and we want to see the same done for fathers.” Now seems to be the best time to make these goals a reality. “We’re seeing a huge opportunity to help connect inmates with what’s outside the walls,” Warren adds. “The most dangerous guy is a guy with no hope – but for fathers their children are their hope. We hear again and again, ‘I don’t want my kids to end up in here.’ They can feel so powerless. We are in a position now to connect these guys to hope and connect them to a future.” Related resources: Learn more about NFI DHHS on responsible fatherhood |
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