Denise Johnston,
"A Developmental Approach to Work with Children of Prisoners: Mother-Child Reunification"
(page 4 of 5)
Putting Research and Developmental Concepts into Practice
A developmental perspective recognizes that child development
normally occurs and is most successful within a nest of healthy human
relationships. It leads to the conclusion that services intended to
improve children's outcomes will improve the quality of children's care
and relationships, and so should be focused on parents/caregivers or the
parent/caregiver-child relationship, rather than on children alone.
Michelle and her baby visiting in ChildSpace.
Jennifer and her son visiting in ChildSpace.
Relationship-based practice is an approach to service delivery that
encompasses these characteristics.[23]
Pawl, quoted in Copa, Lucinski,
Olsen, and Wollenburg (1999), defined relationship-based practice as
"doing onto others as you would have others do onto
others".[24] With
this approach, the practitioner provides for the parent/caregiver what
she wants the parent/caregiver to provide for the child, i.e. a
responsive, nurturing relationship. This approach is particularly
useful for parents whose own attachment experiences and early care were
not optimal and whose individual needs are unmet.
Estranged from her family and cut off from Bella's father
during pregnancy, Natalia suffered from serious postpartum depression.
At their first ChildSpace visit, Natalia was stiff and awkward, carrying
2-month-old Bella out in front of her like an object. After the visit,
she cried, "I can't do this, I can't be a mother!" and talked about
asking her sister to adopt Bella. Concerned, Natalia's MIRACLE Advocate
increased the frequency and intensity of their sessions and encouraged
more ChildSpace visits. Using her Advocate's nurturing as a model,
Natalia slowly became more responsive to Bella, began to enjoy their
visits, and developed parental competence. This work took place over an
extended period of time, as Natalia learned to trust others to be aware
of and responsive to her needs.
A critical element of relationship-based practice is the quality of
the practitioner. Practitioners who deliver relationship-based services
must:
- Be capable of healthy relationships
- Have a stable sense of identity
- Have an appropriate motivation for the work
- Understand that who they are will affect the work that they do
- Have the ability to manage the effects of the work on themselves as
individuals and as practitioners
These requirements demand an increased investment in the recruitment,
screening and training of practitioners. But this investment is
worthwhile because the relationship-based approach significantly
increases the effectiveness of parent, child and family
services.[25]
For the past 20 years, the Center has used relationship-based
practice in services for criminal offenders and their children.
How It Works
The Center's recent efforts in correctional mother-child
reunification programs illustrate how the Center brings together client
characteristics, developmental concepts, and relationship-based practice
to deliver effective services for children of incarcerated parents.
Service Design
The Center has implemented the following major service projects in
one or more correctional facilities:
The MIRACLE Project serves pregnant and postpartum prisoners,
offering: 1) prenatal risk assessment; 2) weekly, home-based prenatal and
infant development education sessions focused on establishing healthy
maternal-infant bonds; 3) intensive case management, including work with
infants' caregivers; and 4) a minimum of 5 years of home-based services
in the community following the mother's release. Each participating
mother is assigned a Family Advocate who is part of a team of
practitioners supervised by an expert in relationship-based practice.
MIRACLE has been offered in Southern California jails and prisons since
2001 and has served more than 600 mothers and their families.
Tiffany, a MIRACLE Mother, and her baby.
MIRACLE Mother Nancy with her daughter.
The Mothers' Institute offers imprisoned mothers 20 hours of
activities each week in three 6-month cycles. Services include: 1)
psychoeducational parent education and family life education classes; 2)
prenatal, infant and child development classes; 3) classes in family
resource management; 4) mothers' support groups; 5) reproductive issues
groups; 6) family reunification activity groups; 7) "alternative
therapies" including yoga, sensorimotor interventions, meditation and
mindfulness activities; and 8) transitional groups for mothers preparing
to be released. Over 200 mothers have participated in the Institute
since 2006.
Mothers' Institute Participants (clockwise from top right: Alana, Dianna, Michelle, Nancy and Angel).
The ChildSpace Project offers intensive mother-child visitation in a
specially-designed, developmentally-appropriate environment. This
project includes extended-contact visitation for mothers and children
from birth to 15 years of age; mediated visitation, facilitated by a
developmental psychologist, for mothers and their children 13-17 years
of age; and support services for families and caregivers of visiting
children. ChildSpace was offered beginning in 2006 and has served more
than 1200 children.
ChildSpace visiting, main room.
Jennifer and her son having a ChildSpace visit.
In each of these projects, services are focused on enhancing the
responsiveness of mothers to their children. Major efforts are exerted
to secure post-release placements for families in structured settings,
like residential drug treatment programs, that will minimize family
stress and support the mother-child bond. As in all of the Center's
intensive services, the staff in each of these core projects focus on
developing healthy, appropriate relationships with participating
mothers, with the goal of serving as supplemental attachment figures in
their lives.
While the Center emphasizes relationships in service delivery,
project operations are also important in increasing the effectiveness of
services. Operations in the Center's intensive service projects are
characterized by features identified by Sambrano, Janson and O'Neill
(1998) as hallmarks of effective services for high-risk populations,
including: 1) high intensity, with a minimum of 3 hours of
participant-staff contact per week; 2) a relational or
connection-building focus of activities; 3) an emphasis in all
activities on behavioral change; and 4) coherent implementation and
execution of services.[26]
After having visits with the twins twice a week for 5
months, Dominique was abruptly transferred to a temporary work
assignment where she could not participate in ChildSpace. Project staff
objected that the change would be detrimental to the infants. "I don't
see the problem," the correctional supervisor responded. "They've been
having visits and it's not like she is being permanently reassigned.
Aren't some services better than no services at all?"
The most challenging operational issue for Center staff in MIRACLE,
the Mothers' Institute, and ChildSpace Projects was achieving coherency
and consistency of services for children in correctional settings.
Participants
These three core projects have served more than 1400 families.
Participating mothers had an average of 2.6 minor children each. The
children had a mean age of 5.0 years and approximately half were
biracial or multiracial. A slight majority had been living with their
mothers immediately prior to maternal incarceration. Most were in the
current care of their maternal grandmothers or birth fathers. About one
in five children were under the supervision of the foster care
system.
The mean age of participating mothers was 27 years for all projects.
Participants were generally representative of the larger correctional
population of their facilities in race/ethnicity, with somewhat lower
proportions of Black and White mothers and higher proportions of Latina
and Native American mothers in the Mothers' Institute and ChildSpace.
The majority of participants had served previous incarceration sentences.
Mothers from all custody classification levels were
accepted for participation and participants' criminal justice
profiles—including offense histories, instant offenses, sentences and time
served—reflected the profiles of all prisoners in a given
institution.
Staffing
Staffing is perhaps the most critical element of the Center's
intensive services. Preference in hiring is given to qualified
practitioners who are formerly incarcerated parents and/or the adult
children of current or former prisoners. Staff in all projects is
reflective of the Center's service population in race/ethnicity. The
Center's staff usually includes about 40% former prisoners, about 20%
adult children of current or former prisoners, and about 20% who are
both children of prisoners and formerly incarcerated.
Alyssa's first ChildSpace session with her daughters was
stressful because they had not seen each other for more than a year.
Their conversation started, stuttered, and stopped again and again.
During snack time, a ChildSpace worker talked with the girls about her
own experience visiting her father in prison as a child, while the
Coordinator talked with Alyssa about how he felt receiving a child's
visit while incarcerated. After snack, Alyssa and the girls had visibly
relaxed and were comfortable resuming the visit.
Most Center practitioners have credentials in child development or
behavioral science. The Center requires practitioners to have a minimum
of two years of prior experience working with parent-child correctional
populations. This approach reduces training and orientation time,
increases staff retention and improves the ability of practitioners to
recognize and meet clients' needs. Between 2006 and 2009, staff in
MIRACLE, Mother's Institute, and ChildSpace Projects had an average of
12 years of experience serving mother-child correctional
populations.
All Center staff participate in a minimum 48 hours of training before
providing services and receive a minimum of 4 hours of training per
month while providing services. All staff also take part in weekly
group supervision and biweekly individual supervision. As a
relationship-based practice agency, the Center utilizes reflective
supervision to help practitioners establish and maintain clarity of
purpose in their work, recognize and address the ways in which their
personal characteristics and behaviors affect the services they deliver,
and recognize and address the ways in which the work is affecting
them.[27]
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