by Samantha Alvarez and Tran Tran
Growing up with an incarcerated parent is a recognized adverse childhood experience. Parental incarceration negatively impacts children’s school performance, emotional and social health; it doubles the likelihood of depression and increases the chance of children adopting delinquent behaviors and entering the justice system. The number of children affected by parental incarceration in Texas makes up almost 20% of the national count, with Harris County comprising 20% of that number. We are proposing a trauma-informed mentorship program to support children with newly incarcerated parents. During one year of program implementation, participants will be paired with mentors to identify and practice skills that support their social and emotional health, such as how to regulate emotions, manage stress, build positive relationships, and perform well in school. Our mentorship program aims to foster resilience in the participants by providing them with knowledge about risks and empowering them with the tools to cope and thrive.
Trauma-informed principles
To ensure trauma-informed program practice, all six trauma-informed principles developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will be applied (SAMHSA, 2014). Physical and psychological safety among staff and program participants is prioritized, as program activities will be conducted in welcoming environment and ongoing training will be provided for mentors to receive continual support. Mentors will receive training to use restorative approaches instead of disciplinary strategies towards their mentees (Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, Scattergood Foundation, United Way of Greater Philadelphia, and Southern New Jersey, 2016). To promote trustworthiness and transparency, only initial screeners and direct mentors will be asking mentees about their traumatic experiences, limiting the number of people each mentee has to repeat their trauma to (King, 2023). Mentors will ensure mentees understand the confidentiality of program activities and how information about the mentees will be recorded and used.
Formerly incarcerated Black parents and their children will participate as mentors and guide program efforts. Their prominent presence in the program serves to ensure effective peer support and delivery of culturally sensitive services. Our program also focuses on empowering each mentee to speak for themselves and set their own goals and plans of action. All staff will receive trauma-informed care training that includes how to communicate about ACEs-related risks to mentees.
Lastly, our partnership with the Harris County Resources for Children and Adults, Big Brothers Bis Sisters, and the Harris County Jail fulfills the collaboration and mutuality principle. The collective resources through this partnership enable in-depth understanding of children who experience parental incarceration and how mentorship can properly support them. Each partner organization contributes to the best of their expertise and brings together services to meet each mentee’s desired outcomes.
Levels of the social ecological model
Our project will address two levels from the McLeroy social ecological model: the intrapersonal and the interpersonal levels. With limited time, we chose to focus on these two levels because we believe in empowering individuals to exercise their innate strengths to overcome adversities by providing the right support; and research has shown that the presence of a stable, and caring adult can provide that support to help children (Redford, 2016).
Our program activities are operated at the interpersonal level through one-to-one mentorship and are intended to guide each child’s intrapersonal development. The intrapersonal level pertains to aspects of an individual’s developmental history, their behavior, skills, and knowledge (McLeroy et al., 1988). Participants will be guided to gain self-awareness of how having an incarcerated parent affects them and identify positive coping skills to handle adversities.
The interpersonal level includes formal and informal social groups and support systems (McLeroy et al., 1988). During the first month of program implementation, the remaining parent or legal guardian of each mentee will be asked to take part in mentorship activities. By encouraging family involvement, we aim to promote a safe home environment for children to work on building relationships and developing secure attachment. Program activities also focus on helping children maintain healthy attachment and a positive relationship with their incarcerated parent. Lastly, monthly activities with other mentees give participants the opportunities to practice social skills with peers, where they can learn to relate and bond with others who have gone through the same adversity.
Public health framework
Recognizing that the same adverse event can lead to varying degrees of trauma in different individuals, our intervention program will employ the primary, secondary, and tertiary stages of prevention to create personalized services based on each child’s needs (Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, Scattergood Foundation, United Way of Greater Philadelphia, and Southern New Jersey, 2016). Through mentorship, our program will assess each of the children’s circumstance and address the applicable levels of prevention.
With primary prevention in mind, we choose to serve children whose parents have only been incarcerated for a month or less, and who are less likely to have healthy buffer from trauma due to low neighborhood safety (Cronholm et al., 2015). Our program focuses on building their resilience to overcome hardship and keep adverse experiences from developing into trauma. Secondary prevention is carried out via initial screening for areas of health that may have been affected, where licensed providers assess each child’s emotional, psychological, and social well-being at program implementation. Those assessments will guide personalized tertiary prevention for each child to mitigate the risks of poor social, behavioral, and educational outcomes associated with parental incarceration (Warren et al., 2019).
As a long-term primary-level prevention, our program aims at reducing the exposure to parental incarceration for future generations. Since the conviction of a parent predicts a child’s eventual incarceration, our program supports currently affected children to cope positively and avoid becoming incarcerated themselves in the future (Warren et al., 2019).
References
Cronholm, P. F., Forke, C. M., Wade, R., Bair-Merritt, M. H., Davis, M., Harkins-Schwarz, M., Pachter, L. M., & Fein, J. A. (2015). Adverse childhood experiences: Expanding the concept of adversity. American journal of preventive medicine, 49(3), 354–361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.02.001
King, L. (2023). A trauma-informed approach overview and principles [Lecture notes]. University of Florida. https://mediasite.video.ufl.ed...58b40258a0324a78881d
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An Ecological Perspective on Health Promotion Programs. Health Education Quarterly, 15(4), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/109019818801500401
Philanthropy Network Greater Philadephia, Scattergood Foundation, United Way of Greater Philadelphia, and Southern New Jersey. (2016, October). Trauma-informed philanthropy: A funder’s resource guide for supporting trauma-informed practice in the Delaware Valley. https://philanthropynetwork.or...raumaGUIDE_Final.pdf
Redford, J. (Director). (2016). Resilience: The Biology Of Stress And The Science Of Hope [Film]. KPJR Films.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach prepared by SAMHSA’s trauma and justice strategic initiative. https://store.samhsa.gov/sites.../priv/sma14-4884.pdf
Warren, J. M., Coker, G. L., & Collins, M. L. (2019). Children of incarcerated parents: Considerations for professional school counselors. The Professional Counselor, 9(3), 185-199. https://doi.org/10.15241/jmw.9.3.185
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