CTS Project Strengthening Families and Children of Offenders through Mentoring

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 Connection Training Services' (CTS) main goal is to encourage, promote, and maintain communication and engagement between incarcerated parents and their children. CTS plans to develop and/or deliver programs that enhance the life skills of children of incarcerated parents, such as mentoring, case management counseling, youth coaching, and academic support. The program also plans to provide services to facilitate communication between incarcerated parents and their children and caregiver, such as transportation to facilities, reading on tape, phone calls, emails, letters, and tele-visiting. CTS will implement a continuous quality improvement process to track and assess the impact of services and activities on the study (participant) and comparison (non-participant) outcomes. St. Joseph's University will conduct an independent Impact Evaluation, using the participant and randomized control groups. CA/NCF