Promising Practices for Strengthening Families Affected by Parental Incarceration

This literature review from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation evaluates studies of family-strengthening programs that seek to maintain relationships between children and their incarcerated parents. The review, which covered 59 programs, examined what areas should family-strengthening programs explicitly address in their models as well as what programs and practices are currently used to strengthen families involved with the justice system. Program focus areas include engaging non-incarcerated caregivers, considering children's ages in program design, considering incarcerated parents’ gender and role within the family, engaging in cross-system collaboration, implementing strategies that engage incarcerated parents and their families, and promoting families’ financial stability.