“Dear Friend,

Whether meeting with a parent in prison or a caregiver in the community, CLICC never forgets that a child is the tie that binds.

Though they are not responsible, children of the incarcerated can blame themselves for their parent’s choices (“If I hadn’t bugged Mom for a new bedroom, she wouldn’t have had to steal to get it.”) (“If I hadn’t been bad, Daddy wouldn’t have argued with Mommy and hit her.”) These thoughts can cause feelings of shame, stigma, toxic stress and trauma which, if unaddressed, can create physical and emotional challenges that last a lifetime.

With your help, CLICC has been an important support for these children and their families for nearly 12 years. Reading and mentoring is our secret sauce. Reading and discussing books selected by the children increases communication and strengthens relationships between incarcerated parent and child — but also between child and the mentor who is specifically trained by CLICC to support them. Here are a few recent examples.

Anna was especially happy to meet with her CLICC mentor at the library this week. Anna’s dad has been arrested again, and reading the “Mya Tibbs” series —about a spirited, can-do kid like Anna — with her mentor let Anna focus for an hour on something other than her difficult and painful feelings. If Anna wants to talk, she knows her CLICC mentor will be there to listen.

While children and their mentors meet, separate mentors work in prison with approximately 100 parents per week to encourage the family reading habit and help with their real-life communication and parenting challenges. About 24 children (ages 5-17) participate in our intensive mentoring per year. A 2023 University of Connecticut study showed that children in CLICC mentoring experienced fewer emotional, behavioral and relationship problems.

High-school freshman Maddie likes the graphic novels and anime books she is reading with her mother, who is incarcerated. Mom and daughter just got permission to read the books together during visits — a first for that prison. But Maddie’s real passion is theater, and her new CLICC mentor is a perfect fit. She directs and performs college theater; she even has performed the play Maddie is working on now. As Mom reported at her weekly CLICC group meeting: “I haven’t seen my daughter this excited in a long time. She told me: ‘Mom, she’s a nerdy theater kid…just like me!’”

These critical connections are nurtured by CLICC’s staff of just three people, one of whom works part time, and an army of volunteer child mentors, many of whom come to CLICC to deepen their studies in criminal justice, social work, education or psychology at a college or university in Connecticut.

John and his mentor will end their CLICC year shortly with a virtual pizza party. Grandma cares for John while his mother is incarcerated, and she is grateful for CLICC. John “feels that he has a friend somewhere out there — a big brother, and that’s helped him a lot…There’s always a child out there who needs to know that somebody is actually going to take the time and listen to them. For my grandson, that somebody is (his CLICC mentor.)”

When a parent goes to prison, it takes a team to rally around a child whose only mistake is blaming themselves for something they didn’t do. CLICC has led the charge on behalf of these children for 12 years. We need your help to continue. Please give today by

• mailing a check to CLICC, Inc. at 470 James St., Suite 7, New Haven, CT 06513

• visiting https://bit.ly/GIVE2CLICC.

Thank you!

Joy L. Haenlein, Executive Director

The Hon. Mary E. Sommer (ret.), Chair of the CLICC Board of Directors

A 4-year independent evaluation showed children who enrolled in CLICC literacy and mentoring for incarcerated parents and their children experienced fewer problems like fighting, depression and social isolation.

The study was led by Dr. James Conway for the Institute of Municipal and Regional Policy, a nonpartisan public policy research organization at the University of Connecticut.

Specifically, the study found:

Children (ages 5-17) "experienced a reduction in emotional, behavioral, attentional, and relationship difficulties” during their year of CLICC mentoring; examples of the difficulties included “fighting, being unhappy or depressed, problems staying still, and preferring to be alone instead of with their peers.”

The report noted that the CLICC mentoring model “was explicitly designed to address parental incarceration and is different in important ways from the models represented by prior evaluation” ..and concluded that "results are promising and support additional funding and evaluation of the CLICC mentoring model for (children of incarcerated parents.)"

Great! Where does CLICC go from here?

We will use lessons from this study to: conduct a larger evaluation of the impact of CLCC on incarcerated parents and their children; deepen support for families, including child caregivers, and; adapt the CLICC model for use with more families and jurisdictions.

November 2023

An independent study, just released, shows children with parents in prison who enrolled in CLICC, the literacy and mentoring nonprofit for incarcerated parents and their children, experience fewer problems like fighting, depression and social isolation.

Dr. James Conway evaluated data (2018-2022) on the child experience with CLICC, submitted by the children and their caregivers, on behalf of the University of Connecticut’s Institute of Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP), a nonpartisan public policy research organization. The incarcerated parents were not part of the study.

The report said children "experienced a reduction in emotional, behavioral, attentional, and relationship difficulties” during their year of CLICC mentoring, and concluded that "results are promising and support additional funding and evaluation of the CLICC mentoring model for (children of incarcerated parents.)"

Some examples of the difficulties were “fighting, being unhappy or depressed, problems staying still, and preferring to be alone instead of with their peers.”

Mary Sommer, chair of the CLICC Board of Directors, said the nonprofit organization — now in its 10th year of service to parents in Connecticut prisons and their families — was pleased with the results, but not surprised.

“CLICC recognizes that some of the most important work toward reentry, for incarcerated people as well as their families, happens while the individual is still in prison,” she said.

“We knew anecdotally, from participant feedback, that CLICC was beneficial for children in our mentoring program,” she said. “This evaluation helps to confirm and flesh out benefits and point to next steps as CLICC continues to enhance services to children and families and grow.” Among the priorities are an evaluation to study the impact of CLICC participation on incarcerated parents and well as their children, deeper support for families, and adapting the CLICC model for more families and jurisdictions.

The problem: The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that nearly 1.5 million U.S. children had a parent incarcerated (2016); in Connecticut, the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that about 43,000 children had an incarcerated parent in 2018-19.

When the parent is removed from the home due to incarceration, children may lose social and financial support, and their risk increases for developing such mental health and behavioral problems as school attendance/acting out issues, and being stigmatized and shunned because of the incarceration at a time when family members may discourage them from talking about it.

Left unaddressed, these challenges and the accompanying toxic stress, shame and trauma can create lifelong physical health and behavioral problems that derail development and, in some cases, shorten the lifespan. However, support from family and other caring individuals — like a mentor — can be protective factors that shore up a child’s self-confidence and resilience and keep healthy development on track.

Background: How CLICC works CLICC uses reading books and trained mentors to increase communication and deepen relationships between incarcerated parents and their children. Its goal is to reduce parental recidivism and the feelings of shame, stigma and isolation children of the incarcerated can experience.

Children and their incarcerated parents read and communicate about books selected by the children — the parent reads in prison, and the child reads at home —giving them new and interesting things to talk about and an experience the two of them can share. Parent and child meet weekly with separate mentors to support the communication and help with their unique needs.

Founded in 2007 by the late Arthur White of Stamford, CLICC began as a program of the nonprofit Connecticut Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Its first pilot was conducted in 2009-2010 with mothers at the Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury and their children. CLICC reshaped its program for Connecticut’s state prison system and, in 2014, began work with mothers and fathers at two prisons who had children in greater Bridgeport or greater New Haven.

CLICC became an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2020 and actively served families throughout the covid-19 pandemic, including several who participated in the study. Today, CLICC parent mentors meet weekly with groups of participating fathers at Carl Robinson, Osborn, Cybulski and Brooklyn correctional facilities, Manson Youth Institution, and with mothers at York Correctional Institution.

CLICC child mentors and their mentees meet one to one, every week, at a library, bookstore or community center that is convenient for them.

Most child mentors are recruited from colleges and universities, among them Yale University; University of Connecticut in Storrs and Hartford; community colleges in Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury; Quinnipiac Law School, and; state universities in Willimantic, New Britain and Danbury.

*****

Results are mixed on the relatively few studies that have been done on the benefits of mentoring for children with parents in prison, the report said. What sets CLICC apart from these organizations, among other things, is that its mentor training is tightly focused on the needs of this specific population, and the model sets service goals for both the child and the parent in prison.

“The CLICC mentoring model was explicitly designed to address parental incarceration and is different in important ways from the models represented by prior evaluation,” the report said.

About half of survey collection happened during the covid-19 pandemic, which threatened to upend the evaluation. Prisons were closed for more than two years to outside programs like CLICC, complicating CLICC’s access to the parents who initiate enrollment for their children and families.

“Enrollment had to reach a certain level so the evaluation could have meaningful results,” said Joy Haenlein, CLICC’s executive director, “and CLICC staff members were unable to recruit incarcerated parents directly for more than two years. That was a huge problem for us.

“We are extremely grateful that CT Department of Correction staff in some of the prisons stepped up to recruit for CLICC and return completed parent applications to us,” she said. “That gave us the information we needed to reach out to caregivers to enroll children and begin mentoring support.”

With in-person contact discouraged during the pandemic, that support took on a different format for children. CLICC switched child mentoring to video conferencing platforms so mentors could deliver consistent support to children who were faced with everything from loss of family income, housing, and close family and friends, to fears that their parents would die of covid in prison before they could see them again.

“This came at a time when many of our mentors were dealing with their own losses and fears,” Haenlein said, “The beauty and strength of CLICC is in its connection — an understanding and willingness for incarcerated parents, their children and families, and mentors to meet each other where they are, and move forward together.”

Connections make CLICC tick! Thanks to Hearst Connecticut for this news story about CLICC and how we use reading and mentoring to bring together not only incarcerated parents and their children, but children and their mentors. Want to know more about serving as a CLICC mentor or CLICC in general? Email us at: info@connectingfamilies.org

Read the article here: https://www.ctinsider.com/recordjournal/article/clicc-connects-incarcerated-parents-and-kids-books-19577644.php