“When my mother was sentenced, I felt that I was sentenced. She was sentenced to prison-to be away from her kids and family. I was sentenced as a child, to be without my mother.”-Bernstein, N., All Alone in the World, Children of the Incarcerated, 2005
The Family Connections Center is a family support program consisting of multiple family resource centers located in the New Hampshire Department of Corrections. The Family Connections Center is located in the all three of the New Hampshire State prisons and provides family support services at each of the associated minimum-security units.
The Mission
To strengthen the connection between incarcerated parents and their families while facilitating ties to their community through education and support.
The Practice
Since 1998, the Family Connections Center (FCC) uses a strength-based approach to meet parents where they are at, to educate and support them, during their physical separation from their children due to incarceration. FCC maintains and connects the families left behind to family support programs in their communities, while creating healthy, fun activities for the children to participate with their incarcerated parent.
The Family Connections Center has collaborated with many state and private organizations throughout the years to try to create systems of care for families affected by incarceration. The Family Connections Center was created in partnership with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Family Studies Department and UNH Cooperative Extension. FCC has expanded to include many wonderful partners throughout the years. Each expansion allows FCC to try to meet the needs of family affected by incarceration and to expand that reach statewide. Please see our list of current partners and contributors.
Family Connections Center Brochure
Family Connections Center Brochure - Explainingchildrens-brochure-print-book-form-2021 NH prison to Kids
Please watch the short video created by WMUR’s NH Chronicle in 2017 about the Family Connections Center and the follow up NH Chronicle episode from March of 2022. A few things have changed since then, more programming has been added, the NH women’s prison moved to Concord and became the NH Correctional Facility for Women and the Annie E. Casey foundation estimates that more than 15,000 children in NH have a parent who is incarcerated:
The Expansion
The Family Connections Center has always recognized the need to support families not only in the prison, but in the community where the children and their caregivers are living. In 2020, the FCC partnered with Waypoint and the NH Attorney General’s office to apply for the Second Chance Grant. Waypoint was awarded this grant, Second Chance Grant #2020-IG-BX-0002, to expand reentry programming in the Family Connections Center and to create systems of care in New Hampshire for children who have a parent who is incarcerated. The program we created under this grant is called “Family Ties Inside Out”. This program connects all newly incarcerated parents in NH jails and prisons to their local family resource centers. It also creates various support groups for children of different ages and two groups for caregivers.
Family Ties Inside Out Brochure
Family Ties Support Groups -Resource
| Contact Information |
The Children | The Incarcerated Parents | Caregivers of the Children | Current Programs
Partners and Contributors | The History
Resources | List of Books for Children of Incarcerated Parents | Participant Quotes
| FCC Home |
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