Thank you Laura Porter for sharing this video with our community.
This video highlights some of the impacts of incarceration on children and families, and an innovative and unlikely partnership that has reached a sometimes overlooked population of children. The video doesn't directly discuss ACEs, but the back story is all about ACEs (and saving money).
Washington Partnership Bolsters Parental Resilience, Documented in National Film Press Release – Department of Corrections Washington State – Washington Partnership Bolsters Parental Resilience, Documented in National Film
Released March 29, 2017. -- http://www.doc.wa.gov/news/2017/03292017p.htm
In Washington, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Early Learning (DEL) joined together in a special partnership featured on the film, which focuses on innovative programs working to engage parents transitioning from confinement to communities and form the improved partnerships needed to ensure the safety and well-being of their children and families. [Film is 9 minutes 18 seconds long.]
"As the recession hit, Washington State Legislators had already received education about ACEs on several occasions and were actively discussing ACE-related policy. Legislators were keenly aware that when we incarcerate a custodial parent, the incarceration becomes an ACE for his/her children. Because incarceration disproportionately affects minority children, the state's role in perpetuating disproportionality in childhood adversity was being discussed by a few Legislators as the recession hit.
A coalition of Legislators proposed a budget reduction policy that would also improve the effects of state policy on children. It provides a judicial alternative sentencing option for custodial parents who commit non-violent crime. Contributing to the evidence for the sentencing option was a piece of analysis that Dr. Dario Longhi, the Senior Researcher at the Family Policy Council (where I worked) provided. He analyzed Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data that was collected during years when we had added the ACE module. He pulled information from the population who had a household member incarcerated during childhood (incarceration was one of their ACEs). He looked at health, safety, education and productivity patterns for people whose ACEs included incarceration. That provided information about the likelihood of reduced long term costs for the state. The sentencing alternative reduced short term costs for the state, since home monitoring and family support are cheaper than prison." -Laura Porter
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