Pennsylvania Enhanced Parenting and Child Engagement to Reduce Impact of Incarceration

This program will promote and expand services in detention and correctional facilities to incarcerated individuals and their minor children younger than age 18, and provide services to children of incarcerated parents by facilitating access to services that support their needs. This program will provide states and localities with funding to implement positive family engagement strategies and activities that address the needs of incarcerated parents and their minor children.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) will use funding to serve incarcerated parents, their minor children, and the children’s caregivers in the community. With targeted outreach and skill building, PADOC will identify and mitigate barriers to maintaining the parent-child relationship during incarceration, including barriers to visitation. In-prison interventions and coordination with community partners will center around four prisons, selected as pilot sites for their geographic and gender diversity and for the high number of identified incarcerated parents in each. This project will serve parents incarcerated in Pennsylvania state prisons, their children, and the children’s caregivers in the community. CA/NCF