Strengthening Families through 4-H LIFE

The OJJDP FY 2015 Second Chance Act Strengthening Families and Children of Incarcerated Parents program will promote and expand services to children who have a parent who is incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) correctional facility. Program activities include mentoring and comprehensive services that facilitate healthy and positive relationships between incarcerated individuals, their children, and caregivers. This program will implement positive developmental activities to address issues the child and the family may face, strategies to increase and enhance communication between child and parent, and transitional reentry services for parents who are released during the program. This program is authorized pursuant to Section 211 of the Second Chance Act, P.L. 110-199.

The prominent goal of the Strengthening Families program is to provide both parents and youth the tools and opportunities that they need in order to build stronger family engagement. This program combines positive mentoring relationships for youth, parenting classes for incarcerated parents, structured activities around family history and culture, and family involvement in 4-H community clubs. This multifaceted approach ensures that all members of the child’s circle are engaged and connects them to a larger community of support to ensure that impacts are sustained over time. Strengthening Families through 4-H Living Interactive Family Education (LIFE) will scale the evidence-based 4-H LIFE program to Bureau of Prison facilities in three states to reach new communities of beneficiaries while formalizing best practices, curricula, trainings and resources to be used in counties across the country. National 4-H Council plans to supplement the OJJDP performance measures process by adding a pre-and post-experience evaluation using Common Measures, 4-H’s system-wide evaluation system. The intent of the survey is to evaluate the impact of specific program initiatives, measure trends in 4-H positive youth development outcomes over time and guide staff in strengthening 4-H programming and 4-H mentoring programs with the inclusion of established best practices.
CA/NCF