Nonprofit aims to create bonds between kids, incarcerated parents

FREDERICK — As the name implies, Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership focuses on helping children. But Rachel Noor, a mother of four, credits the organization with helping her get sober.

A conviction for driving under the influence sent Noor to the Frederick County Adult Detention Center for two months in 2017, separating her from her children — two of whom were minors.

It was her second DUI conviction in two years. Alcohol was a problem.

Behind bars Noor met Shari Scher, a woman whose organization changed Noor’s life.

Scher founded Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, a volunteer-run nonprofit that aims to help children up to18 years old. While working in the Frederick County Public Schools system, she realized children whose parents were incarcerated were struggling. She wanted to help.

Scher knew what it was like to grow up with an incarcerated parent. Her father, a man she loved, was incarcerated when she was a teenager. With her own experience in the back of her mind, she asked the superintendent to start a program to help students with incarcerated parents.

The partnership was born. It became an official nonprofit in 2011.

To better understand just what Children of Incarcerated Parents does, Scher said to imagine a circle. The child sits in the middle. Caregivers, those who take care of the child when a parent is behind bars, make up one side of the circle. The parents, including those incarcerated, are the other.

The partnership addresses all parts of the circle, Scher said. It provides monthly activities for children including bowling or arts and crafts. At the detention center, the organization’s volunteers created a book nook so children could look at books while they wait to visit a jailed parent. They can take a book home when they leave.

The nonprofit holds a sharing fair six times a year where members collect items to donate to the children.

For caregivers and parents, those in jail or released, the nonprofit provides gift cards or bus passes. It also offers parenting classes in the detention center and outside.

Noor took one of the parenting classes while at the detention center, a class that helped her realize how her own adverse childhood events affected her life. Taking the class allowed her to examine her life and make changes. With the partnership’s help, she embraced sobriety and found a way to be financially stable on her own.

While Noor’s oldest child is in her late 20s, the class helped her connect with her children while she was behind bars.

For parents, sitting behind bars shuts out more than just the outside world. It creates a longdistance relationship with their children, even if the jail is only a few miles from their home.

Visiting can be hard and impersonal, Scher said. Calls cost money. So to help parents maintain that relationship, Children of Incarcerated Parents gives postcards to the parents who take the class to send to their kids. It also helps them prepare to reconnect with their children upon release.

For the children, the nonprofit purchases stuffed animals that have recordings of their mom’s or dad’s voices. When the child hugs the animal, the recording plays.

And the organization is looking to expand operations. It has a memorandum of understanding with the school system. And there is a collaboration with the Mental Health Association to run a Families Impacted by Incarceration Program, including a class on parenting from afar.

Items, classes and the other services provided by Children of Incarcerated Parents are all funded by donations.

“I always say to people, I have three grandchildren, and I only want the best for them. ... Therefore, these children deserve what my grandchildren get,” Scher said.