Study shows “promising results” for CLICC child mentoring
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.
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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.”