Angie Vachio, "A Life Journey with At-Risk Families: PB&J Family Services, Inc."
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To keep families connected and to promote stability, PB&J's Project ImPACT staff, in addition to providing parenting education and reunification services in prisons, bring children to visit with their incarcerated parents, provide therapeutic community support for children, and follow families after a parent's release from prison.

We have also developed bonding and attachment centers for juvenile parents in confinement, often staying with young moms after birth and assisting with family placements. We provide bonding and attachment services for fathers in the adult and juvenile correctional systems as well. PB&J brings their children into prisons and nurtures these vulnerable families. We've worked to get funds legislatively appropriated into department budgets for transportation costs so that families can be reimbursed for their travel.

At the women's prison, PB&J has developed overnight visitation programs. With strong support of the legislature and the Governor, a home-like environment has been built on the prison grounds. PB&J brings children to be with their mothers, who cook for them, care for them, and quiet their nightmares. PB&J always stays connected to the children after the visit, supporting them as they struggle in their own complex lives as they "do time on the outside." This connection continues after the mother's release.

PB&J has taken a further step by identifying children in the public schools who have an incarcerated parent and offering support to them. These are children who often experience shame and guilt, anger and isolation. They are suffering but invisible, and at risk of school failure, delinquency, and involvement in gangs. Children left without stable and nurturing support systems often look for family in all the wrong places. PB&J offers socialization, connection, understanding, and treatment. It is often a lifeline to these children.

My dream was to take this even further by using video technology in the schools and prison system to easily connect children to their parents, and the parents to the schools. The vision was for parents to participate in parent-teacher conferences, for children to do homework with their parents, and for parents to support their children's achievements in school. We initiated a pilot project, working with the corrections department to build the technological "firewalls" so that their data system would not be contaminated. Although the program is only operational in one school and two prisons, the technology has been developed to expand throughout the state. I hope to see a day when the breakdown of attitudinal barriers restricting children's access to their incarcerated parents outpaces technology, and programs like this flourish.

Children of incarcerated parents are remarkable young people. I've found them to be extraordinarily talented and independent. PB&J has supported them to participate in public speaking engagements at conferences, in prisons, and in other venues. A group of children of incarcerated parents recently created a panel at the University of New Mexico law school to raise public awareness. They performed a touching rap song they wrote and recorded, portraying their lives while their parents are incarcerated. In the audience were a compassionate community of lawmakers, law students, teachers, parents recently released from the prison system, and other members of the public. New Mexico's public broadcasting system partnered with some of PB&J's enrolled children of incarcerated parents to produce a documentary entitled Invisible Children which originally aired in November 2009, and is now offered for national distribution.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that our collective life purpose is shared. We're here to love one another, and we're here to leave this world better than we found it. I believe that we do that through children—those we birth, those we love, those we know, and those we don't. And our practices must follow our beliefs.

I am now retired as PB&J's Executive Director, but I continue to use my experiences with clients to promote family-focused policies in New Mexico. Our recent advocacy has resulted in the passage of a new statute, implemented in July 2009, prohibiting the shackling of women in childbirth or post-partum care. And we have formed a new legislatively mandated task force to develop protocols for pregnant substance-using women to have access to prenatal care and substance abuse treatment, without fear of prosecution. Our most recent accomplishment was winning the Governor's approval for a pilot project for women, releasing them early so they can resume their parenting role and reenter their communities.

I beam as I reflect on the growth of PB&J Family Services from a volunteer service in a storage room to a multi-site, multi-county, innovative, exciting, vital, interactive family program that literally saves lives, and gives hope and voice to thousands.

But looking back over the past nearly four decades, I realize that my work has not been work at all. It has been my life's purpose. It's been a heart journey, and it was never about me. The journey has been about the thousands of families who PB&J has served. They're the ones who really have done the hard work—changing their lives not for themselves, but to give their children a fighting chance.

Endnotes

1. "US has the most prisoners in the world" by James Vicini, Saturday, Dec 9, 2006. Reuters. www.commondreams.org. [Return to text]

2. US Department of Justice press release, August 26, 2008: www.ojp.usdoj.gov. [Return to text]

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