Designing and implementing a mentoring program for children of prisoners

Abstract

Children with incarcerated parents are especially vulnerable to at-risk behaviors and are in a position to receive enormous positive benefits from volunteering and being mentored. National and community service programs will find these recommendations on designing and implementing a program that mentors children of prisoners helpful. These suggestions have been adapted from the publication, Building from the Ground Up: Creating Effective Programs to Mentor Children of Prisoners, by W. Wilson Goode Sr., the director of Amachi, a national mentoring program for children of prisoners that began in September 2000.

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Issue

The type of mentoring a program offers will shape its structure and operation, and mentoring children of prisoners offers its own particular set of challenges.

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Action

There are three critical phases to establishing a mentoring program: planning, building, and managing.

Planning the Program

When planning a program that mentors children of prisoners, it is important to ask the following key questions:

• Can the program succeed here? Determine if there are enough interested congregations, support within communities, funding resources, and children of prisoners who can be successfully identified within the community to make a mentoring program worthwhile and successful.
• In what neighborhoods will the program operate? Determine in which neighborhoods the congregations that might be considered as partners in the program are located and find out where the children of prisoners are likely living.
• How large should the program be? The scale of the program depends on the number of congregations and volunteers, and the number of children who are to be mentored.
• Who are the organizations and people who need to be involved? Parties that should be involved include congregations, advisors and information sources who help to identify the families and children of prisoners, a professional agency responsible for creating matches and supplying case management for the matches, and local community organizations and local government.
• What should the program's message be? While a single, compelling motto or catchphrase is generally useful, different audiences will need to be reached with different messages, tailored to their interests and concerns.
• How will the program be structured and staffed? A clearly articulated structure, with well-defined responsibilities is critical to the success of a program.
• How will the program attract and sustain funding? Resources should match up with realistic plans for organization and staffing.
• How will the program's success be judged — and by whom? From the outset, attention to measuring performance and results needs to have a prominent place in the planning phase.

Building the program

1. Connecting with congregations and faith leaders
   It is here that the program channels the enthusiasm of the faith leaders, and finds the volunteers who will be the front line of contact with the children of prisoners.
2. Finding the children
   Only when a solid base of congregation volunteers has been identified should the process of recruiting the children begin.
3. Utilizing a support organization
   Crucial to the operation of an effective program is the involvement of an organization that brings professionalized knowledge and capability to the table.
4. Bringing on the volunteers
   With the encouragement and effective delivery of the mission by the faith leader, individual congregants will come forward, ready to volunteer.

Managing the program

1. Case management
   As each mentoring relationship (the "case") unfolds, the program will need to track its progress and success.
2. Communication and relationships
   It is important to keep all of the stakeholders and partners informed as the program develops.
3. Technical assistance and support
   As the program becomes fully operational, its managers must be prepared to handle the challenges that individual aspects of the program (or individual faith organizations) may pose.
4. Fiscal management
   Maintaining visible and high standards of integrity regarding program funds is a fundamental task of program management.
5. Documenting results
   Make sure outcomes are fully and carefully recorded.

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Context

The Corporation for National and Community Service has identified "ensuring a brighter future for all of America's youth" as one of its strategic focus areas, recognizing that children of incarcerated parents are at risk for school failure, unemployment, criminal behavior, and persistent poverty. The Corporation's goal is to provide mentoring and other support services to 100,000 children of prisoners by 2010.

Since 2000, Amachi has been designing and implementing mentoring children of prisoner programs. In the Amachi program, volunteers are recruited from congregations to serve as mentors for children of prisoners.

Over the years, AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps*VISTA members helped fuel Amachi's expansion and have participated in each stage of development. Since 2005, Senior Corps programs have used lessons learned from the Amachi model to create their own mentoring children of prisoners program as well as to partner with existing programs.

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Citation

Adapted from the publication, Building from the Ground Up: Creating Effective Programs to Mentor Children of Prisoners, by W. Wilson Goode Sr., the director of Amachi.

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Outcome

The Corporation for National and Community Service has supported Amachi since July 2002, when it assigned 40 part-time AmeriCorps members to serve as congregational volunteer coordinators for the original Amachi program in Philadelphia. Their service model then became the basis for expanding service to full-time AmeriCorps*VISTA members.

In November 2003, the Corporation allotted 55 full-time AmeriCorps*VISTA slots to the Amachi program. Since that time it is estimated that AmeriCorps*VISTA members have recruited volunteers that have served more than 110,000 service hours.

In 2005, Senior Corps joined the partnership. AmeriCorps*VISTA members are currently supporting Senior Corps' mentoring children of prisoner programs in five states. In addition to the AmeriCorps*VISTA supported programs, numerous other Senior Corps programs have developed mentoring children of prisoner programs based on the Amachi model.

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For More Information

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Resources

During the planning phase, programs should consider having their key staff attend the Amachi Training Institute, where they will receive valuable guidance on each stage of program development and management.

In addition, interested parties are encouraged to visit the Amachi Chat Forum to connect with programs nationwide that mentor children of prisoners.

Related Practices

• Supporting children of prisoners and their caregivers
• Using performance to give voice to children of prisoners
• Making the most of mentoring opportunities

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Related sites

Amachi

Family and Corrections Network

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