When parents are locked up, how about the kids?

Iwas having such anxiety ... I’m not saying I was going to hurt myself, but when those pups came in, I’m just saying, it saved me.” This is the voice of an incarcerated mother who misses her children, a graduate of Parenting, Prison and Pups (PPP), the first and only program of its kind.

Since 2017, PPP, an evidence-based parenting program, integrated with animal-assisted therapy (AAT), is provided to incarcerated mothers at the Westchester County Department of Correction, in partnership with Pace University and Hudson Valley Paws for a Cause. With March hailed as Second Chance Month, a commitment to furthering reintegrative processes, PPP provides a second chance to incarcerated mothers who want to maintain healthy bonds with their children.

As someone impacted by paternal incarceration, I understand its devastating effects on families. For this reason, I have designed, evaluated and directed corrections-based programming for more than 25 years; I also serve as PPP’s director. I recognize that by providing incarcerated parents with the tools they need to mend bonds with their children, we are finding another way to fight crime, albeit from the inside.

Our society focuses a lot of time discussing lawbreaking and incarceration, but there is limited discussion regarding the children who are left behind when a parent commits a crime. The ability to maintain healthy bonds between a parent and child is fundamental to the child’s physical and psychological well-being. Since parent-child bonds are often damaged through the process of parental incarceration, parenting programs for the incarcerated are vital.

Approximately 5 million children in the U.S. have experienced the incarceration of a parent. Many children of incarcerated parents are resilient and will excel, but others have problems like depression, anxiety, health, and/or poor school performance. Perhaps they look to replace family support, subsequently absent at home, with others who pull them into gangs or drugs, eventually ending up in the same system that separated them from their parent.

Although losing a father to incarceration is difficult, losing a mother appears more detrimental. Women, who often serve as primary caregivers for minor children, are a vital component to family stability. With 70% of incarcerated women responsible for a minor child, women need to be the primary focus for rehabilitative initiatives; healthy contact with a parent, even limited contact, is beneficial in helping children attain prosocial outcomes.

Benign, cost-effective interventions, like PPP, can be easily implemented in carceral settings. Animal-assisted therapy is utilized to create a safe space, often difficult to achieve in a corrections environment, as we not only discuss parenting, but the reasons underlying one’s incarceration.

Therapy dogs are used for emotional support and purposely weaved into the parenting curriculum. They motivate everyone to stay in the class, despite the uncomfortableness of some of our discussions. “[The dogs were] so loving and I felt more comforted and relaxed,” as one woman stated. While the therapy dogs offer support, women learn skills like communication and problem solving to establish healthier relationships with their children.

With a caring and committed volunteer staff, an integral component to program effectiveness, we witness many successes, such as statistically significant differences in anxiety, parental stress, self-esteem and parental knowledge. Despite the program lasting less than two months, participants report more confidence in their parenting skills, increased contact with their children and better relationships with their family, including the child’s caregiver (i.e., the gatekeeper to her children). One graduate said, “I learned more than I thought. I was able to make connections with my family and bond with them.”

Having strong familial bonds is especially important in transient settings, like jails, where skills can be taught in a short period of time, practiced while incarcerated, and utilized upon return to the community. The success of this program allowed its expansion to incarcerated fathers last year.

Therapy team volunteers and Pace students help with program delivery. The Pace students do not necessarily understand it, but by volunteering to help the incarcerated, their ability to fight crime begins early in their career trajectory. Dogs, who are often used successfully by many law enforcement agencies, are serving as alternative crime fighters in the jail setting, helping mothers address underlying issues of trauma that often lead to substance abuse and subsequent crime.

Many corrections-based programs are provided by volunteers and through private donations. Using PPP as an example, colleges around the country can easily assist in this process, with college donors helping to offset any operational costs. The cost is small, especially when compared to the value of a child’s psychological well-being and their worth in having an opportunity for a better future.