Parenting at a Distance
Jo Jorgenson
Tuesday, September 15, 1998, 1:15 - 2:30 PM, Balcony A
Jorgenson
I’d like to first of all welcome everybody, my name is Jo Jorgenson, I’m the director of post secondary education program at a minimum security women’s facility in Phoenix Arizona. As your program states, my workshop is about the Parenting at a Distance Program. We actually have three different programs at the minimum security facility and we have several other post secondary education programs at another prison in the Phoenix area. This workshop is about the Parenting at a Distance Program in particular. I’ll touch on the other programs we do at ACW. I want you to know that a couple of my colleagues are here who also direct programs in their respective prisons, Jane Goldstein at Perryville prison in Phoenix and Bernie Bennett in Tucson Community College.
Before I get started though I want to say, what do you want to hear about from me. Given the facts about the parenting program I’m supposed to be up here talking about, I discovered in the workshop this morning, I discovered people have some other interests, some other things they wanted to see addressed. So, if I can do that I will certainly do that within the context of this. So if there’s anything that you want me to talk about today in particular, let me know now and I’ll do my best to include that.
Question from audience
I was thinking approximately seventy five percent of the children of inmates end up following their parents. So, what can we do to prevent that?
Jorgenson
Okay, I’ll address that a little bit in terms of the parenting program that we offer.
Inaudible question…
Jorgenson
Unfortunately we don’t offer that program in the men’s units, not that we wouldn’t like to, we haven’t been able to receive the funding or the approval to do that from Department of Corrections at this point. Jane and I both stress every year and as does Bernie that we need these programs in all of the units in all of the prisons in Arizona, not just in the women’s prison. By they way the only place this program is done as completely as it’s done is at the Arizona Center for Women where I work. Bernie I believe is offering a couple of classes now, but he is just been able to do that and only in the women’s unit.
Question from audience
I’d like some materials during the break..
Jorgenson
Okay that’s great. Okay well, this morning we talked in the workshops I attended there was a lot of discussion about the profile of the female inmate, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time with the statistics that I would normally go over. The fact that the majority of women in prison are parents. Over fifty percent have been physically or sexually abused. Over seventy five percent are in for non-violent crimes. I want to talk a little bit about the facility where I work, just so you have an idea of what the inmates day is like there. Because it might be different than any of the facilities that you may or may not work in. And, I think you need to see what their day is made up of just so you know how we fit these programs into their day.
When they come to the Arizona Center for Women, as I said this is minimum security facility. They have been at Perryville prior to coming to ACW, all the women in the state of Arizona go to Perryville Prison first to be sent from there, they are tested there and what not and are sent from there to Manzemeta in Tucson, or some, a few, stay at Perryville… and then some of them again are sent to ACW. Depending on their offense and their number and that kind of thing. But, basically, they rise at dawn, they dress in blues, their inmate uniform is blue jeans and blue T-shirts or chambray shirts, they have breakfast before seven, they work or attend school until eleven o clock, eleven am count, they eat lunch then they return to work or to programming. They return for a four o’clock count followed by dinner and then they spend their evenings programming, schooling or at leisure.
The work, the inmates in the state of Arizona are mandated to work forty hour weeks. Their pay ranges anywhere from ten cents an hour to fifty cents an hour typically. There are a few who actually make minimum wage and they are from this particular facility where they can go outside during the day to work in, for instance, Ash Kitchen, the mental health facility, they work in the kitchen there. Some of them are working for minimum wage, however they can never have more than that fifty cents an hour in the prison on their accounts. So, the state of Arizona says you have to work forty hours a week, however if you’re programming, if you’re getting an education, you may substitute up to twenty hours of that forty hour work week for education. They have become very, very particular about that in the recent years.
Ninety-nine percent return to society and they are expected to cope as responsible citizens. They are expected to resume their role as a parent and a role model. And, they are in need of employment. They’re challenged to support themselves and the family and most are lacking the skills needed to be successful. Unless, programs are offered to reform and transform, to cultivate positive self-concepts, to develop vocational skills, to introduce positive parenting practices, to acquire social coping skills, teach problem solving and conflict resolution and change negative behaviors.
Big mouthful. We’re all here working to see that that happens. I know the question at the early workshop this morning was, you know, how do we make this happen once they’re even out of here. My job is to work with them in the facilities. My frustration is I can try to attempt all of this in the facility, what’s going to happen to her however, when she walks out that door. When that door slams behind her, what kind of a system is there for her there. Some of you at least work with them after their released, which I think is great. We don’t have enough of that in Arizona. We need more programs that will address their needs once they’re released. Because often times I feel that as they walk out the doors we have done the best job possible to prepare them for what they’re going to face, but we can only do it to a certain point.
So, we want them to move away from what is actually still today’s environment. Female population has tripled. Jobs available upon release are the lowest paying jobs. The recidivism rate in Arizona is forty percent. Estimated 1.5 million children of the incarcerated, we all know that, we’ve talked about that this morning. These children are five to six times more likely than their peers to become incarcerated.
So, what we are attempting to do is to change all of that through education and training. By developing productive skills, providing a purpose, goals and a sense of worth and improving social habits and work ethics. Helping inmates make positive life changes.
As I said before, besides the parenting program we offer a couple of vocational programs at the Arizona Center for Women. Back in 1994, Department of Corrections changed their focus for post-secondary education in our state. Prior to that we were allowed, the colleges who contracted with the Department of Corrections were allowed to provide academic courses enabling inmates to work toward AA degrees. What happened is, in about 1994 they said why should they be getting degrees when we can’t afford to send our own kids to school. We’re paying for their education, but we can’t afford to send our kids to school, so they said we need to focus on vocational training.
Teaching them marketable skills, teaching them skills that they can use in the workplace once they’re released. To that end, they have allowed us to do programs such as construction technology, building maintenance, graphic arts, computer technology program. We have that both at Perryville and ACW and Bernie has it as well in Tucson. All of these are certificate programs. They’re college credits but they earn certificates or awards of completion in a program and hopefully walk out with some marketable skills.
The parenting program is the exception to that. It’s not really called a vocational program. We’re not teaching these women to work in child care settings. We’re hopefully teaching them the skills necessary to become better parents to their own children. And, for that reason it is the only program that allows us to enroll students who do not have GED certification. One of the things Department of Corrections now says is that anyone enrolled in a vocational program must obtain their GED if they have not already done so. They will allow concurrent enrollment if they’re actively participating in a GED program but otherwise, no, they have to go through that program first. And, if they’re involved in mandatory literacy they have to complete that before they can move on into any post-secondary education even though it is vocational training. As I said, the one exception to that is the parenting program because I had said to them all along, you know, a mother is a mother whether or not she’s got a GED and she needs the skills to be hopefully a better parent to her children.
And when I say better parent, I’m talking not just once she’s released. We work very hard to teach women in the prison the skills necessary to communicate better with their children from a distance. We find that that’s extremely important. They’re dealing with the obvious issues of separation. For many of these women they have to learn the importance of writing to their children every week. To learn the importance of that phone call every week and the constant every week, as often as she can, make that phone call, and if you have to when you’re talking with your child, write down what they’re saying about their friend Johnny or Sarah and remember to ask them about that friend the next week when you call them.
Our program is called Parenting at a Distance. We offer program of study including what I call the Lecture Lab, Within this ten credit program, we offer courses in child-family studies, counseling and no longer there. It was through her support of a parenting program that the parenting program, this program was allowed to begin. It started with a six month pilot project funded with seed money through the Department of Education and from there it received financial support from the American Express Philanthropic Program for one semester. Then it was picked under contract between Real Soloto College and Department of Corrections and now it is regularly funded each year through a contract that the colleges have with the Department of Corrections.
It’s evolved over the years. When I began in January of 1989 I was hired to develop the program. At the time it consisted basically of one class, a lab basically, where children were allowed to come in with their mothers. They spent the afternoon with them. There was an instructor there. They got one credit, one college credit for this course, and that was basically the program. What I discovered early on is that when you bring kids in to be with their moms, of course many of these mothers did not have an opportunity to see their children on a regular basis so they were totally consumed with the anticipation of that visit. We had what we called an interactive lecture for a couple hours prior to the children being allowed to come in but I noticed right on that these mothers were intent on watching that door for that child to come through and not listening to an instructor talk to them on parenting. One of the things that I did early on in the program was to separate the interactive lecture. They do that now one night a week with the instructor and then the lab is on a Friday afternoon. It is part of a series, I’ll talk more about that in a few minutes. But, I found that then the women were able to concentrate much better on what they were learning and then apply that when visiting with their children.
Parenting at a Distance we call it building a bridge with family one step at a time. Three steps we offer, programs within each step. Laying the foundation, personal growth and bonding, and as you can see, some of the courses that we offer within that segment are family communication process, child development, eliminating self-defeating behavior, building self-esteem, conflict resolution. You might ask, conflict resolution, building self-esteem, eliminating self-defeating behavior, isn’t that about the individual and not the individual and her child. Yes, you’re right, it is. Another thing that we discovered early on is that you can’t really work with these women to help them develop their parenting skills until you’ve given them an opportunity to learn more about themselves. To deal with some of those self-defeating behaviors, to build some self-esteem. That kind of thing.
We go on from there to strengthening the structure, parenting techniques and behavioral change. And again, here we get into some more of the technique kind of thing. Personal family role-development. Parent-child communication lab. Stress management in the family. Parent child interaction, infant care, something called demystifying adolescence, discipline and guidance. We try within our program to offer courses that deal with every different age group from the infant, the toddler, preschool to preteen. One of the reasons, and obviously we get into the teenage issues as well. As they move on through the teenage years. And then the last part of our program is called moving forward, reuniting with family. And again, examples of this women in transition, emergency child-care, personal family financial security, and child nutrition. We found that it is extremely important not just to give them information on how they communicate with their child but information on what do I feed my child.
What do I do if he falls and breaks open , is bleeding, how do I deal with emergency issues. What do I do if he has the chicken pox, how do I know it’s the chicken pox. All of these things we discovered are, you know, I’m a parent and I know that I was not necessarily taught these things either but I had good role models. My parents I felt were good role models. They gave me some of the information that I needed. Many of these women don’t have that opportunity they don’t get that information. They aren’t raised with that information so they have to learn it from scratch. One woman told me once; anytime I’m making changes in the parenting program I pull together women who have been in the program, incarcerated women who have been through either part of it or all of it, and one woman, we were having a discussion about discipline. I said yeah, it’s interesting how things have changed. When I was a kid it was okay to be spanked. I was spanked if I misbehaved. Well, lucky you, you were spanked, I was beaten. That is the knowledge she grew up with. That is what she saw as acceptable, normal behavior. For many of these women, it’s not that they want to abuse their children or want to do the wrong thing, they just have never learned the right thing. They have never learned how to work positively how to work with their children. Once you begin to teach them, they’re like sponges. They’re lapping it up. I mean, I have never seen such dedication from students as I do from the student who are in the prison. I’m not the one teaching the classes, I’m the one directing the program and hiring the instructors. The instructors come back year after year after year because they say to me it is so rewarding to teach in here. They are so much more interested than my students on the street, they really want to learn this information.
The goals and objectives of the program pretty obvious I guess. We teach parenting skills in an interactive setting. We provide opportunity to practice those skills with the children and we promote healthy interaction and quality time. We encourage expression of feelings and creativity, we work on building self-esteem. What I tell all of the instructors who teach in any of our programs. Teaching your discipline is important, and it’s important how you get that information across. But you have a much bigger responsibility with these women. That’s as a role model. You need to teach them the importance of commitment. When they say I’m going to be here, teach them the importance of following through with that commitment. Give them an opportunity to find out how good they will feel once they do.
Obviously in the parenting lab, that’s where we provide the opportunity to practice the skills with the children. As I said before, we do an interactive letter one night a week. Then that same instructor or team of instructors will teach the lab Friday afternoons. It’s a four hour lab, during that time, the children can come and go, depending on the transporter who is bringing them. Some kids aren’t out of school by 1:30 so they come at 2:30. All of the children have to be out of there by 4:45 because of the inmate’s dinner hour.
Early on when we set up this program the children were being delivered by volunteers who transported. It didn’t work. It didn’t work because first of all I had a hard time finding volunteers, there were liability issues and all of that. So, I said to the inmate mothers, if you want your kids here, you’re going to have to figure out how to make that happen. And I quite frankly was very worried that that part of the program would not be successful because of that. Because of the fact that they were going to somehow have to talk the caregiver or the sister or the grandmother or whoever, bringing the kids, dropping them off, and then picking them up at the end of the day. Surprisingly enough, it was very successful. They don’t, you know, a child may not come all ten times, but they come as often as they can. I encourage the mothers to work with the caregiver to always praise them, to write letters to them. Thanking them for the time they’re taking to do this. I would like to consider looking into other avenues, because of course some of the kids don’t make it because the caregiver just can’t bring them. At this point, like I say, I haven’t had any luck with that.
As you might imagine, do any of you work in the prisons? Several of you do. Well, as you might imagine, the logistics of the lab are a nightmare. Just working with the prison staff to make it happen. Do any/all of you have programs working with kids in your prisons? Three or four of you, that’s great. Well, we have found again, depending on who’s in charge, deputy warden etc., that is very crucial that’s willing to support the program. That doesn’t always happen, so there’s a lot of inconsistency in terms of what is allowed in and what isn’t allowed in. The instructors are told from day one, you know, the most important thing you can do is be flexible. Know that you walk in today, this item may be approved. You walk in tomorrow and it may not be approved, and that’s just the way it is.
As you can see we offer several different lecture classes in conjunction with the lab. And I vary them because I discovered the women want to take the lecture series over and over and over again if there’s room. We allow them to do that, they want every opportunity to see their children in this positive setting and, you know, we want to make that possible for them if we can. We offer this lab twice a year, once in the fall, once in the spring and it runs for ten to fourteen weeks, depending on how we set up the hours.
It’s an interactive setting, there’s play equipment, arts and craft supplies appropriate from infant to elementary age children. We also provide games, books any number of activities a mother can share with her adolescent or pre-teen. They can’t come into this particular prison, the children can’t come if they’re over the age of thirteen. We’re dealing with infant through thirteen. Typically, the instructor sets up centers for this time period. There’s usually one or two crafts that highlight the afternoon and they always relate to whatever they’re discussing in that lecture. For instance, if they’re, if it’s a communication class and they’re doing I messages, they might have an assignment relating to that that they do with their child. If they’re child is too young, they observe it with other mothers and their children, the whole communication process and attempting to do that.
The goals and objectives of the lab again, you can see, we work hard to promote a healthy interaction and quality time. They don’t get quality time during visitation so we’re trying to give them that time that they can be alone with their child doing fun things and practicing the skills that they’ve learned. They can only, we don’t allow them to enroll in the lab without enrolling in the lecture. They can take the lecture and not take the lab if they want to, but it’s very important that if they want to take the lab they have to be part of that lecture class so they understand how they tie together.
Learning focus: developing a sense of responsibility and competence, dealing with stress and anger, renewing bonds for effective communication, learning ways to discipline without abusing, understanding developmental stages of growth, breaking the cycle of dysfunction and promoting stability. All things that we attempt to do in this program. As I said before, I believe, maybe I didn’t say it. It’s a sixteen week program.
The students meet anywhere from one to five nights a week for the interactive classes, and then of course the lab is one afternoon per week for ten weeks. They obtain, after they have completed this whole sixteen week program, it’s ten college credits. These are all credits that are transferable if they want to use them as electives in any of their other, you know if they go on to obtain AA’s or what not. They can use these courses so there is another advantage. Most of the women who are in this program are mothers, however, occasionally I’ll get someone who is interested in a human service field for instance, and wants to go on for a higher degree, meaning AA and maybe eventually BA and she’ll take one of these courses or maybe several of them to get herself a little further along there. One to three college credits are earned, and as I said they apply towards the associate degree.
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
It’s a college class, we have varying levels in each of our academic levels and what we’ve learned to do, our instructors are very good about assessing that early on. We give them tests prior to them entering into any of the programs. It gives us some idea of how they fare in reading and their English and even math skills which isn’t particularly important in the parenting. We tailor the classes to meet the needs of the student. The instructors are very good at that. We have found that rather than using any textbooks that might be suggested or part of the curriculum, outside in the college, we find resource material. A lot of handouts, we do find occasionally some books for the classes, it just depends. If an instructor suggests to me, I really want to use this particular book, I think it would benefit this particular group of students then we purchase the book and it’s used as a resource and they have that for the duration of the course. It could be a workbook, it’s not a text book as you and I think of college text usually. I’m trying to think the one we used for the nutrition course is meals without squeals. So, very simple reading but also a very helpful book in teaching nutrition. We do use for the emergency child care, we use a red cross book that they provide.
The women can’t, most of them, read, I find if they don’t read at all, we have to funnel them back through the literacy program. Usually, maybe they can’t get the credit, maybe they can sit in. We’ve had Spanish speaking women who don’t speak English. I get translators, other inmates who can translate who sit back there or instructors who are bilingual who will try to work with them both in their native language as well as running the class for the English speaking students. It’s very difficult, you have to be a dedicated instructor to be willing to teach out there but they find it to be so rewarding that they keep coming back. Yes, you do, we have competencies that have to be met within the college system, you know. Things that have to be taught, but if you have a good instructor, they can take that and break it down and simplify it as much as they need to simplify it. This sounds academic but if I have it all written down, it’s easier for me to present it. It is, it’s done in a way that allow these women to learn and they’ve come back time and time again testifying to that fact, yes I have learned. Even a woman who is reluctant to go into the program, they don’t have to go into the program. Sometimes I have women who will start, gee I just don’t know, well stick it out, get through this class and then see what you think. Nine times out ten they’re going to go on.
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
Is there any processing going by? When I’m talking interactive I’m talking about lecture. It’s a classroom, they might be sitting in a circle, they are participating all the time, they’re journalizing, they’re doing role-playing. They teacher is not standing up there lecturing without them participating. And again, it’s been an education for these instructors because what they may teach out on the street to you or me, they have to learn where these women have come from. They have a whole educational process that they have to go through.
Who wanted this, did you get it down wherever it was...Any other questions about the parenting, any discussion, any?
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
I’m glad you asked that. Yes, we do have an evaluation process, do I think it’s a worthwhile evaluation process, no it’s not particularly. But, I’m working to change that. What the college provides is a full-time faculty from that discipline who comes in and evaluates the instructor. Okay, what we also do is give the students evaluation that they complete about the class and the instructor. It gives us some information, how much is it used? How valuable is it. Again, I’m not sure we really do anything with it and I’d like to see more happen. The other part that I’d like to see happen is to actually be able to track these women once they’re released I have some ideas of how to put that in place, it’s just a question of making it happen.
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
That we’re putting in place, it’s going to begin with our child development lab this semester. We are doing some pre-testing, for instance we’ll have a multiple choice test relating to child development, then we will provide that test again at the end of the course to see how much they actually learned and retained. We also are putting in writing components, which I’m a little bit nervous about. It’s something the college wants to do. I’m not sure how successful it’s going to look in this setting but the assumption is that any time they’re involved in a college course, they’re going to increase their communication skills, their writing skills, that kind of thing and so there will be an exercise done to see if in fact that’s happening.
Statement from audience
Our funders really look at pre-testing and post-testing. I don’t think it’s a really good tool, but our funders really look at that. Unfortunately funders want that.
Jorgenson
Our funders don’t look at it. The department of corrections isn’t paying much attention. That’s not to say that it won’t happen. I think that as some of the management has changed at DOC, we will find more evaluation done in the future. I personally want to see how our program is impacting the women. I get a stack of letters like this..., that they write to me, we’ve had a news special done to give you an idea of the parenting lab. I have recorded the comments that have been made and that kind of thing. I get their personal feedback but I don’t have anything formal. As I said before, the real piece that is needed is an evaluation after they’re released when they go back into the home and they’re with those children. Is it working? Is what we’re teaching working?
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
We had a couple of doctors from AS school of nursing and expressed an interest in our program. They did some testing and the next thing I knew. They had indicated to me this looks like it’s doing well they disappeared, and they went out to Perryville and they’re doing some stuff out there aren’t they Jay?
Inaudible question from audience…
Jorgenson
Right, did everybody hear that? It’s very difficult to track the inmate because once they’re released from the institution they move around etc. and it’s hard to keep up with them. Yes?
Statement from audience
One of the things California is doing to track that lack of ability to track these inmates after they fall off the face of the earth is when they’re leaving and they’re really motivated about the program they hand them a packet and it’s a packet of five postcards and occasionally it really works and they’ll get five of those postcards back. That is something that they were doing even before we started funding them. They’ve picked up on it and we’re going to try it with this new program that we’re funding out to try to track recidivism data. It almost seems like, if they’re so excited about this parenting type program when they leave that they’d be willing to send you a postcard back saying this is where I am, I have a job, I don’t have a job.
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