Webinar: Educators are Critical Partners in Making a Difference in the 

Lives of Children of Incarcerated Parents

Thursday, September 24, 2015

2:00-3:30 PM EST

Hosted by: 

Federal Interagency Reentry Council Subcommittee on Children of Incarcerated Parents

American Institutes for Research

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar. Educators are Critical Partners in Making a 

Difference in the Lives of Children of Incarcerated Parents. My name is Katie McDermott and I will be 

handling the technical moderation for this event. 

Please note that all participant lines are muted and will remain muted throughout the course of the 

presentation. However, if you have a question at any time, feel free to type into the chat box located on the 

right side of your screen. The webinar presenters will receive your questions throughout the webinar and 

they will try to get to as many questions as possible during the Q&A session of today's event. 

Near the beginning of today's webinar, we will ask participants to respond to a polling question. A box with 

multiple-choice questions will appear on your screen, and you will be able to choose one answer by simply 

clicking the circle next to the response. 

At the close of the webinar, you will be directed to a short feedback form. Please take a minute to complete 

the brief survey to give us your feedback regarding today's webinar. Note that this form will open in a new 

browser window outside of GoToMeeting. You will need to disable all pop-up lockers in order to view and 

complete the form. 

This presentation is being recorded and will be archived for future access. You will receive an email in the

coming days with a link to the archived presentation. At this time I will introduce our facilitator, JulietteMarie deSousa. 

Thanks, Katie. Hello, and thank you for joining us for today's webinar on how school staff can make a 

difference in the lives of children with an incarcerated parent. This webinar is brought to you by the 

American Institutes for Research on behalf of the Federal Interagency Reentry Council Subgroup on Children 

of Incarcerated Parents.

To Reentry Council works to remove federal barriers to successful reentry so that individuals are able to 

compete for a job, obtain stable housing, support their children and families, and contribute to their 

communities. The Council has 12 subgroups, one of which is focused on children of incarcerated parents. 

My name is Juliette-Marie deSousa. I co-manage AIR’s work with Reentry Council. Today's webinar will 

discuss data about and the experiences of children with an incarcerated parent, in order to provide 

background information and context for school staff and others working with these children. Will also talk 

about information about working with children with an incarcerated parent in the school and other setting 

when the educator or provider may or may not be aware of the parent’s incarceration. And we will discuss 

resources that are available to help teachers, school staff, and others who work with children who have an 

incarcerated parent. 
Will hear from two experts in the field, and educator, and a youth with the lived experience of having an 

incarcerated parent. We will have time at the end for questions and answers and you're invited to submit 

your questions in the chat box at any time. We have received some questions via email already. We will 

answer as many questions as possible during the Q&A session at the end of the webinar, and you can email 

questions to youthgov@air.org after the webinar. 

We are fortunate to have four speakers, the first of which will be Ann Adalist-Estrin. Ann will be providing 

an overview for all of us about the topic. She is the Director of the National Resource Center on Children 

and Families of the Incarcerated (NRCCFI) at Rutgers University where she also teaches in the Department 

of sociology, anthropology, and criminal justice. 

Under Ann’s leadership, NRCCFI has provided training and consultation to government and nongovernment 

agencies and community programs across the U.S. and internationally. She is also a consultant of the echoes 

of incarceration video project and is the author of several publications. 

In 2013, she was honored at the White House as a champion of change for her work as an advocate for 

children and families of the incarcerated. She will be followed right Dr. David Osher, an AIR Vice President 

and Institute Fellow. David will talk about whole school approaches of using trauma informed approaches 

when working with all students, including children of incarcerated parents. David's day-to-day work focuses 

on multiple topic areas, including collaboration, children services, prevention, social emotional learning, 

school climate, and youth development. David serves as the Principal Investigator of three major research 

and technical assistance centers funded by the U.S. government, and also serves as the Principal 

Investigator for the contract for this work with the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs. David 

consults with industries, nongovernmental agencies, educators, and human service professionals around 

the world. He serves on numerous expert panels and editorial boards and has authored and co-authored 

over 300 books, monographs, chapters, articles and reports. 

David will be followed by the Reverend, Dwight Davis. Dwight will give us an on-the-ground, educator’s 

perspective of working with all youth, including those with parents who are incarcerated. Dwight is a tenyear veteran teacher and a proud product of the District of Columbia public school. For the past decade, 

Dwight has served Wheatley Education campus as a fifth-grade teacher, English and language arts coach, 

home visits coordinator, and teacher lead. He now serves as the assistant principal of Wheatley. He 

partners with parents and the community in an effort to continue to raise achievement levels. 

Prior to his teaching career, Dwight played both professional and semiprofessional basketball with the U.S.

and abroad. He has published book chapters and has written several op-eds for the Huffington Post. 

And then finally, we will hear from Kendall. Kendall is our youth voice, and he will share his personal 

expenses with us. Kendall is a graduate from the US Dream Academy, which he started in a fifth-grade when 

his grandmother enrolled him after she got him and his sister out of foster care and legally adopted them.

With ongoing guidance of the staff of Dream Academy and his mentor, Kendall worked hard to learn to 

cope with the trauma, shame, and anger key was experiencing at that time as a result of the many 

challenges he had faced in his life, including abuse, and the arrest and incarceration of his parents. Over the 

past four years, Kendall has been an advocate for mentoring children of incarcerated parents and 

underserved youth. He users his expenses of being in the foster care system and impact of family 

incarceration as a platform to inspire other young people to overcome adversity. He has shared his stared 

his story on Huffington Post Love, KTSU radio and as a speaker at the 2014 National KIPP Summit. He also 

represented Dream Kids at the White House for a forum on mentoring children of incarcerated parents, 

where he shared with congressional representatives and high-level White House officials the impact of 
mentoring on his life. He is currently a freshman at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, where he is 

majoring in sociology. 

These bios and more details and a tip sheet for teachers are available for download during this webinar and 

afterwards. 

As Katie mentioned, we would like to start with a polling question so that we can learn who we have on the 

line today. 

So, on your screen in a moment you will see the options. If you would quickly choose the option that best 

represents your role and who you work for. 

[Participants being polled] 

And we see some of the results are coming in. We will give folks a few more seconds. 

[Pause] 

Okay. It looks like almost -- so far we don't have everyone in yet, but so far we have almost half of the

people or 40% of the people are teachers, principals or other school staff. We have about 20% as 

community providers or working within the child welfare organization world, at almost 30% are in other 

related fields.

So I think since we have limited time, we will let the poll continue, but I am going to turn it over to Ann who 

will start us off. 

Thank you so much, Juliette. I am thrilled to be able to do this webinar. We at NRCCFI have done a

tremendous amount of training over the last couple of decades in schools around the country, and I have 

learned so much from the teachers and counselors from even the bus drivers and cafeteria workers, and 

certain from the families and young people that we gather together for this training. So I am happy to be 

able to share a lot of that with you today. 

I always start out by a quick check, asking people to act and reflect think and reflect for a moment to finish 

the sentences. The best thing that would happen or could happen to the children of incarcerated parents is, 

and the worst thing that could happen. And we get a lot of different answers. I think a lot of people who are 

drawn to disciplines that work with children, serve children, care for children tend to say things like the 

best that could happen is kids get really good support, that they are not treated any differently than other 

kids, that they don't experience shame and stigma. And the worst thing that could happen is that they, 

really the opposite, that they don't get the support, but also that they don't follow in their parents footsteps 

or that they are not wrongly accused of things. And I just want to share that all of those things are 

important, but what often and most often the kids say, is the best thing that could happen is that their 

parent come home and able to parent them well. And that the worst thing is that they would die in prison. 

And I think it reflects the fact that often we are thinking of things related to helping kids manage away from 

their parents, and sometimes, and often, maybe, the kids are thinking about ways in which they wished 

they could have a better relationship with that parent. Most important skill and guiding principle for me, 

number one, is to be self-reflective. We really can't do this work of us we're asking ourselves pretty 

regularly what lenses and are you wearing when you think about this topic? What is your perspective? And 

I’ll weave that into this presentation quite a bit. 
And I am going to go through my slides quickly, and they are available to you so that you can delve into 

some of the information more closely on your own time. 

The first thing I want to say is how we know what we know, because in the last decade we have seen

tremendous amount of increase of information about children of incarcerated parents, and so we do know 

that we get a lot of information from data collection, but we are still trying to figure out how to do that. We 

don't count heads. We are doing random samplings. We are using data that is collected by some 

Department of Corrections, by some Departments of Child Welfare. We rely heavily on anecdotal and 

programmatic and clinical Chronicles, and experiences of family. But probably most importantly, the 

meaning that gets made of any of this research by everyone who reads it, implemented, and then does 

program and policy developed, is really significant. 

What we do know, and it is an estimated number, is that including prisons and jails, 2.7 million children that 

have a parent that is behind bars on any given day. And it is an estimated number because, as I said, we're 

not counting heads. We are doing random sampling and using a formula to figure out an estimated 

number. 

From those formulas and random sampling's we found that over 50% of children with an incarcerated 

parent or age 9 or younger, which has really significant implications for programs development. 

We also know that caregivers are by and large the other parent since most of incarcerated parents are men, 

most of the children are living with their mothers, and the graph shows the other types of caregivers that 

children have. I wanted to just put in here some excellent resources on ethnographic resources and 

experiences of families that really help us to dig in and get some depth about what families are experiencing 

through this process. 

We also know what we know through some studies that are gaining a lot of attention right now and are 

very helpful to us, one being the adverse childhood experience study that looks at those negative health 

and behavioral outcomes that seem to be stemming from certain expenses and childhood and having an 

incarcerated that the incarcerated household member is one of those experiences and that is very 

significant. 

I think it is significant because of trauma, and we're not yet doing a good enough job at connecting the 

trauma literature with the literature on adverse childhood experiences and children of incarcerated parent. 

But what we do know about trauma is that it affects executive functioning brain development in a way that 

causes impulse control problems and emotional regulation that leads to poor school performances and 

increased dropout rates, and gang involvement, and other types of negative outcome. And if we rely on 

that trauma literature and we expand it a little bit to think about what folks are saying about younger 

children, for instance, Victor Carrion at Stamford University says that since young children have great 

difficulty understanding about death, that sudden loss of a parent to incarceration or any other situation 

could create a cortisol surge for trauma, to the same extent as being held at gunpoint would for other 

adults. Now we start needing to start thinking about what the meaning that is made of some of the 

research and connections between -- I am having trouble moving my slides because of the -- [Pause] -- I am 

sorry, folks, I am having trouble moving the slides. 

We will take over moving the slides, for you Ann. 

The poll keeps popping up and it interferes with my moving the slides. 

We are closing the poll and we can move the slides for you. 
[Pause] 

And I cannot move them, so I will not be able to see them. I apologize about this. I will be with you in one 

second. 

[Pause] 

What slide would you like to start with? Seeking Equilibrium? 

Yes. Okay.

Yes. What we also know is that as kids deal with stress and trauma, they are looking for equal the bring 

through dopamine surges and one of the things that is fascinating is that young children really do need 

their primary attachment figures as a buffer from that stress and trauma. If that is not hard enough, the 

Harvard Center on Child Development is looking now at toxic stress being stressful situations for families 

and communities over long periods of time, creating some of the same outcome as the specifically 

traumatic event would. 

Again, meaning making is important, so when you look at the ACE Study through the lens of child 

maltreatment, which some folks really are doing, if doing that and says that the incarcerated parent 

maltreated their children, that’s meaning you make in assumptions, that they are harmed by their parents 

and are better off without them, it has policy implications. But if you look at parents as incarcerated as 

potential buffers from the toxicity and therefore, a different meaning is made of the loss. It becomes more

profound and less dismissible.

Guiding principle number two is when you read that research, why could that be, and not just say I see, 

okay, but perhaps there is more antisocial behavior because of social learning theory or kids are imitating 

their parents, but what about trauma and the impact of trauma? 

I also want to say that we ask ourselves are the just kids. And they of course are. Emmanuel Lartey says that 

we all, as human, are just like everyone else, like some others, and like no others but ourselves because we 

each person manages that situation in their own way.

Guiding principle number three is that children of incarcerated parents are not one monolithic group. There 

are lots of beings and variation, and therefore there is no one monolithic solution. The combined sources of 

much of the research is though pointing to unique stress, toxic stress levels of incarceration. The stigma 

and shame, conspiracy of silence, changes in residence, difficulty maintaining a relationship, fear and worry, 

lack of relevant support. And relevant is the operative word because it supports our -- not relevant to their 

lives, it is much more difficult. And again, the meaning that we make, if we think that kids are experiencing 

stigma and shame because they are ashamed of their parent, which a lot of people do believe, the kids 

will often say the shame come through the reactions of the people around them, not so much that they are 

ashamed of their parents, that they are shame is coming out and resulting from the reaction in things that 

people say . So P, a 13 year old said when people ask about my father, I know that if I tell them he is in 

prison for drugs, they will either drop me in the conversation and talk about the weather or give me this 

big picture lecture about how I don't have to turn out like him. I hate both of those things, so I lie and say

that he died.

I think that is important to know whether a child witnessed the arrest of a parent because that can often 

create even more drama or intensified trauma. I think we need to consider the embedded issues of racism 
in the system, and the fact that two thirds of incarcerated parent population is nonwhite. I think Kristin 

Truney’s study that looks at health is very helpful to us, and if you look at the particular slide, it is noticeable 

that there is a huge difference between having an incarcerated parent and not having an incarcerated 

parent for health issues that are stress-related. But things like diabetes and epilepsy and bone and joint and 

vision problems not so much, and so we can really trace the issue of trauma and stress to health as well as 

behavioral issues. 

So in wrapping up the role of schools and all of the staff within schools is very important. People want to 

know why is this different. It is different because of the trauma, and unique aspect the shame and stigma 

but lack of relevant support. David Satcher said that risk factors are not predictive factors because of 

protective factors, and I think that is really an important quote. 

If we recognize that people, skills ,and a sense of faith and emotional competence are protective and we 

recognize that caregivers and the children's caregivers are protective factors, but we do have a modest 

amount of research that helps us understand their hardship, and that not having access to a parent 

minimizes the buffers and what meaning do we make in terms of including incarcerated parents as 

protective factors. In one study last year on visiting and reaction to visiting, 56% of children responded 

negatively after a visit at 44% responded positively based on caregiver reports. And so some people would

say, well then we should not have kids visiting their parents, but I would say most kids would respond with 

an upset reaction after seeing a parent that they haven’t seen a long time, and we need to be really careful 

about how we interpret the research and the policy and practice that flows from that. 

Dallaire and her colleagues study, that look at teacher bias I think is very important to really look at because 

I think hypothetically when hypothetical situations were presented to teachers, they did have a reaction to 

children with incarcerated parents that showed a bias related to school performance and behavior that was 

different than other kids. 

What you can do in schools. Know yourself, refer respectfully, apply trauma-informed practice, use 

universal outreach instead of just thinking well, this child may have an incarcerated parent, if we can say, if 

incarceration is an issue for your family, we can help, and counselors in the school library, it’s a universal 

approach to outreach. Displaying materials including information about incarceration in curriculum for 

children, help children talk about it but also maintaining confidentiality, and then sort of traditional things 

like support groups. 

Also involving the incarcerated parent IEP meetings where that’s appropriate and promoting awareness and 

reflecting on policies of your schools. Also, partnering with programs your community that do work with 

children of incarcerated parents. Encourage the use of accurate and helpful statistics. Many of you have 

seen seven out of 10 children of incarcerated parents will end up in the criminal justice system and which 

we know is an inaccurate statistic. Jim Conway’s article Seven out of 10, not even close, will help 

understand that false research a little bit better. 

Always include children of the incarcerated in their caregivers in discussing defining the problem and 

designing the solution. Echoes of incarceration films are great for bringing stories of kids and their families

to meetings to PTA meetings et cetera. It’s very important. They always they are only included as the sad 

story or the warm up act instead of any substantive way.

And so I want to end with, don’t let what you can do interfere with what you can do. Because there is a lot 

you can't do as educators, but there is a lot you can done to minimize the stigma and support these kids in 

classrooms. Thank you. 
Now I'm going to turn the baton over to David Osher who is going to talk about his work with kids and risk 

factors for children of incarcerated parents. 

Thank you, Ann, for a very helpful presentation and good afternoon to everybody. 

I want to build on Ann’s points about trauma, and focus on the fact that because there are many young 

people who experience adversities that they may experience traumatically, that in addition to trying to 

explicitly serve the identified needs of young people whose parents are incarcerated, you may get more 

mileage by building an environment that is trauma sensitive and therefore works for many young people 

who experienced trauma so that even if you are not able to identify a young person whose parent is 

incarcerated, you will be providing him or her with some of the support that they need, and I will talk about 

those elements. 

Let me add one thing about trauma. Trauma tends to really bring two impact. One is, as Ann said, in 

compromises people's behavior. It affects regulation. You tend to be hyper vigilant and things like that. It 

also often compromise of people’s relationships because in different ways people have been betrayed. 

Maybe the experience that young people being betrayed by an adult who they were close to, or maybe it is 

people around them, like the people who took the parent away. But young people we are dealing with are 

often people who also need support in developing social relationships and so forth. So let me give you some 

bottom lines that work for children whose parents are incarcerated, but also work for other vulnerable 

children. One is to build assets and to protect the factors. What I mean by assets are things that young 

people can take with them. For example, when we developed social and emotional competencies, we are 

giving them ways of self-regulating the behavior that they can use not just in school, but also on the street. 

And also build protective factors that buffer the challenge that they face. At the same time, reduce or 

eliminate risk factors. And to build on what Ann said, on the one hand, any given risk factor at any given 

age is not necessarily going to mean that a child is going to realize a bad result. But what we know from ACE 

research and from research on risk factors is that the more risk factors that you have, the more likely you're 

going to realize a bad outcome and that risk factors often accumulate and at the same time what we know 

about protective factors and assets is the more protective factors and assets you have the more likely you 

are able to succeed. So the name of the game is ultimately to do both. 

If we are thinking about school and other settings as well, the key is to building the capacity and 

proficiencies of school staff and of the schools and of the system, and I think you will hear from Dwight on 

those to really serve children of incarcerated parents and other vulnerable children well. People go into 

schools because they want to do good. They don't go into school for any other reasons. But people need a 

capacity to do good, and when you are working with kids who challenge you, and when you are working in

challenging situations and when your life is challenging and when the children whom you work with may 

evoke and provoke responses from you because maybe you have experiences trauma in the past. You really 

need an environment that can help you do it. It is not just about thinking good, it is about creating the 

capacity to do good. And that certainly includes very much the type of self-awareness that Ann talks about 

which includes the aware of implicit bias. To go back to the racial issues that have come here, we know that 

the country from scientific research there are implicit biases that help people react to not just children 

whose parents are incarcerated, but children of color, male children of color, most particularly, and of the 

things that people need to be self-aware of and be able to address. 

Next slide, please. 

It is also important to use universal trauma sensitive approaches within a multi-tiered system of support. 

Why I am using trauma sensitive and not informed it is not just wait until you know a child has experienced 

a particular type of trauma, you don’t want to ignore it if you know that. But you are never going to be able 
to identify every kid who is traumatize and if you do go through an identification process you may really 

have the risk of self-fulfilling prophecies and teacher bias and low expectations that Ann raised. And what 

you want to do is build into the entire fabric of the school and what it is doing a trauma informed approach. 

What is also important for all students but particularly students who are vulnerable to build conditions for 

learning, and that includes them feeling emotionally, as well as physically safe. They are feeling connected 

to the school and to their classmates and to their teachers and supported by them. Them feeling the fact

that they are being stretched and challenged but they’re being supported academically to be there and also 

to be surrounded by other peers and teachers who model good social emotional competence. 

What is also part of what we have to do if we want to do it, is to employ approaches to learning 

development that are strength-based. That means looking at a child and looking at a child’s family and 

identifying strengths, as well as trying to build them, that are child and youth centered, youth and family 

driven, and Dwight will probably talk about that more, but to be driven means that you really need to be 

in the shoes of the people that you are trying to really listen to, and that includes parents of incarcerated 

youth who are very important to the youth , as we heard about, and to be culturally competent and 

culturally proficient. It’s not just about color. Is not just about language, it is about social class, as well, and 

is about understanding that there are many subcultures within communities. 

Next slide, please. 

Schools can really contribute to the well-being of children of incarcerated parents and other children when 

they provide safety. When they provide for young people a preparedness and a realistic sense of 

competence that includes the skills that you develop in students, competencies, like social and emotional

competencies like ability to self-manage. Building dispositions like growth mindset. Understanding the fact 

that I can do something, things are not totally fixed, and providing young people with experiences they can 

build upon. Providing connectedness, providing a sense of engagement in the activities that are going on in 

the class and in the school, and providing a healthy and help supporting environment. 

I’ve got to tell my colleagues right now, you have gone off the slide. I don't know where we are right now. 

We are going to get it back.

May I have the next slide now? 

Okay. There are four components that I think you want to think about if you are going to be supporting 

conditions for learning that are particularly important for children who are vulnerable and probably most 

particularly for children whose parents are incarcerated. One is a bucket that includes not just connection, 

but feeling attached, feeling trust, experiencing care, experiencing respect over and over again,

experiencing social emotional learning and support, being in an environment that employs positive 

behavioral approaches that proactively does things to try to make sure that things work for me well by

using data, by being proactive, and being in an environment that supports my ability to learn, that effect 

pedagogy, that are also culturally responsive to making sure that I’m engaged, by really building my 

motivation. 

Next slide. 

As you go down to everything, school can both be protective factors that supports the resilience of young 

people whose parents are incarcerated, by supporting their connection, by supporting their academic 

success, by supporting transitions that they experience. If you think about schools systems, when kids are 

moving, that support their transitions as well. By supporting caring interactions among students and 
families, by providing social and emotional learning, by providing stability for young people whose 

environment and life are often unstable, by when students act out providing positive approaches to 

disciplinary infractions and providing young people with appropriate services and support, and that's what I 

hope Dwight will be telling us he is trying to do things. 

Let's look at some of the neighboring schools to Wheatley. Can I have the next slide? 

And again let’s go through them. What you don't want, because remember risk factors accumulate. Schools 

can be an additional risk factor. The one that may make the difference between success and failure. A place 

where students feel and experience alienation, academic frustration, chaotic transitions to between classes, 

negative relationships with adults, like sarcasm, be shouted at, and tears, being bullied and teased, places 

where they experienced gangs, poor adult role modeling, adult losing control and being counter aggressive 

and using their power to punish somebody rather than acting in a supportive way. Being segregated with 

other students who are perceived to be antisocial. We have lots and lots of scientific data that suggests 

that in most cases when you put kids with behavioral problems with other kids who have behavior 

problems, you get bigger behavior problems, not the opposite. 

By having school driven mobility, moving me around and moving me between classes, moving me into a 

special room, getting rid of me in one school and putting me into another one, and experience of harsh, 

city, and small cities across the country, there are humongous numbers of kids who experience 

exclusionary discipline often harsh, and most particularly kids of color, but also often kids who have been 

traumatized, and this is part of the process that affects young children. 

Next slide please. 

The point here is the issue I talked about work for all kids but they particularly work for young kids who 

have experienced trauma like children of incarcerated parents. 

Next slide. 

If we want to do it, and I have been talking largely about that blue, the foundation, what we really want to 

have is the foundation that provides prevention, that use development approaches, a caring climate, 

positive approaches, personalized instruction, cultural competence, and strong family involvement. And the 

foundation in a place like Wheatley is going to have to stronger than if you’re moving to a suburb.

But no matter what, you want a foundation because that is going to make it easy to implement the multitiered approach. It is going to make it easier to identify the young people who may have greater need and 

that may when you find out that someone’s parents are incarcerated. And if you are intervening early, 

what is going to happen is you are going to reduce the need for those young people who need very 

intensive interventions, but in addition, because of the fact that people are in an environment that is more

healthy, where the temperature is lower, that is what is going to happen is the fact that kids who are 

receiving intensive interventions are more likely to succeed because their peers are going to support their 

wellness rather than undermined their wellness. 

Next slide. I have already talked about this so let’s go to the next slide. 

Next slide, please. 

Unfortunately, there are many people in this country who really don't buy into the needs of incarcerated 

kids, kids whose parents are incarcerated. Particularly if they are black. Or Latino or first nation, and yet the 

challenge is we have to be able to provide the support universally . I would suggest the way that we can do 
it is to really talk about the fact that while we want to address the particular needs of children whose 

parents are part of incarcerated, like making sure that parents can participate in IEP meeting, as Ann has 

suggested, we want to be able to talk about creating environment that works for all young people who are 

vulnerable. Young people who have experienced fear or loss because of a parent or grandparent has died, 

whose parents are deployed in the military, who just had to move from a different place, maybe different 

country, whoever experienced trauma in the community, as well as young people whose parents are 

incarcerated, and when you add all of them together , then you start to have a need to serve many students 

in your school, not just a few students. And so, universal approaches tend to be cost effective and 

beneficial. They serve most vulnerable students. They also, as I said before, help you serve kids even if you 

don't identify them as being traumatized and particularly can help you also serve young people if you don't 

know because they and their caregivers may not want you to know that their parents are incarcerated for 

the reasons of stigma that Ann has already talked about. 

And the last slide, just to give you two examples of where things are being done universally.

One is Mass Advocate for Children, right now implementing a public policy that has been created in 

Massachusetts were schools can choose to try to be trauma sensitive and we had the good fortune of 

evaluating it right now and there the effort is really creating a universal approach that is trauma sensitive. 

And if we go to Washington state, there is a model there that is being implemented by some schools and 

districts that are called compassionate schools, which is based on the notion that there are many 

vulnerable students, and if we really want schools to succeed with every student, what we need to do is 

create the caring, supportive place that built the foundation that I talked about. 

Now I have the great privilege of introducing Dwight, who I have heard great things about before I met him 

today, and we can learn a lot from Dwight Davis.

Excuse me, this is Juliette. I just want to jump in for one moment to acknowledge that we are aware of the 

technical difficulties that many of you are having seeing the slides. We do apologize profusely for that. Will 

be sending out the slides to all of you to make sure you do have access to all the incredible information we 

are hearing, and so we will try to fix it while we are on, but if not, you will receive the slides. Sorry for that

interruption. 

I want start by saying good afternoon to everyone , and I just want to acknowledge that David and Ann did 

a wonderful job of setting this up. What I’m going to do is briefly talk through stress from a teacher and 

administrative perspective and then focus the bulk of my time on keys to success. 

So I want to start by saying this. Every one deals with stress and everyone knows there are different levels

of stress. Getting to a place on time, passing a testing, or even doing a webinar can cause stress, but there 

is a different type of stress, and that is called traumatic stress. There are children who have to navigate 

traumatic stress, especially children living in difficult to circumstances whether it is the death of a loved 

one, lack of food, children may have to deal with abuse or even an incarcerated parent. But this type of 

stress, it does just happen to children. It actually gets inside of the child. It gets under their skin. It’s 

something they can’t necessarily get rid of. And the thing about traumatic stress is that, and the more 

severe stress, which we will call toxic stress, I will not talk about that, is it locks is in what we call fight or 

flight. As teachers and administrators and people who work within school buildings, this is very important

because often times some people have the opinion that you just are being too nice to that child , we need 

to treat that child like everyone else, but there is actually science behind this. 

The science basically says that when a child experiences traumatic stress, the body releases a flood of the 

hormone cortisol, and Ann talked about this, and what happens is the brain is actually bathed in this 

hormone, and it affects certain brain structures associated with learning. For example, the prefrontal 
cortex which controls attention and executive functioning, the hippocampus which is key for learning and 

memory and the amygdala which is the brain emotional smoke detector. These three structures are 

extensively sensitive to stress, and when a child experiences traumatic stress, and actually affects learning 

in the child's ability to learn. The physical experience of traumatic stress is like being locked in a state of 

fight or flight, as I said before, and the body just cannot calm down. 

Let me give you an example. You have a child who is sitting at their desk and they broke their pencil, and 

you say that is okay, sharpen another pencil and a child explodes, “I don’t want another pencil!.” That child 

is experiencing traumatic stress. In a are locked in this fight or flight and a little thing that causes a 

tremendous eruption or you could have a child choose flight and they may run out of the room or they 

make power under their desk. These are the result of them experiencing this traumatic stress. This brings 

me to my first point. I wish it were the case, but when children are dealing with traumatic stress, they don't 

leave home. They don't get to the school and say OK traumatic stress, I want you to sit in the bushes, I'm 

going to have an excellent day. When I come back, I going to put you back on and take you home. No.

When children are dealing with traumatic stress, it comes in to the building. It walks with the child, and 

then it participates in show and tell. 

Knowing this, it is important that school-based personnel and organizations that work with schools, it is 

important to know that that all of the adults in the building must be equipped to deal with and help the 

students manage the stress. It is important that all individuals are equipped to teach children skills and 

coping mechanisms to deal with this. The school leader in particular must be sensitive and aware and have a 

plan. The old cliché is definitely true. Those who fail the plan for stress, plan to fail their students. 

Here are a few things that I think need to be taken into account, especially at the school level. First and 

foremost, we must get to know our students. When students come into the building, there is so much that 

we do not know. Parents entrust their children to come to us for seven hours, they entrust us to feed them. 

But often times there is a lot of things we don't know. A lot of times we can help the child by spending time

at talking to them. 

There is a rule that I use, it is called the 2-10 will. I have students that I know deal with difficult situations. I 

take two minutes out of my time for 10 days straight to talk to them, and that is sufficient enough time to 

develop a wonderful relationship with that child, and then the child feels comfortable to come and talk to 

me about anything. And this is important because what Ann said is the primary caregiver is a buffer, and if 

you are a teacher or school-based leader, you know that oftentimes children see the adult in the building as 

surrogate parents. So that is just one strategy . You have to get to know the students, get to know them, 

be proactive about it. We have to reach out to families without prying. We don't want to pry into a family 

because that causes suspicion. We do want to be proactive. And we want to provide students 

opportunities, like even to have lunch. We have something called lunch bunch. What that means is the 

teacher give a pass to a series of students or one student and the teachers have lunch with the child and 

you just talk. You talk about video games. You talk about math. You talk about the latest episode of their 

favorite television show. These are just strategies to get to know that child because the antidote to stress is 

trust, and we want to build trusting relationships. 

Another thing that we want to do, which is number two, is invest in your mental health team at your 

school. And I think over the years school leaders investing in mental health teams has gotten a bad 

reputation, but this is something that is critical. At our school we have a art therapist, social workers, a 

school counselor. We have so many people there to help our students, and this is very critical because we 

need skilled individuals in the building able to deal with students who are not able to manage themselves. 

You need to have skilled in the building who can teach them skills and dispositions that can help them selfregulate.
Which brings me to number, building trust and relationships. Here are some strategies that we use in our 

school. We are huge proponent of home visit. And so our goal is that every teacher within our building will 

visit 75% of the students on their roster. What this does is it changes the dynamic. Most often parents and 

students, when they hear from the teachers, it is often negative. One way in which we try to switch this is 

we said let's go out and meet our parents, let’s out and talk to them about their hopes and dreams for 

their children. Let’s go build relationships, because we know that if we can build relationships with the 

students and with the parent , then that will make the school more welcoming and a more peaceful place 

and parents feel comfortable coming to the school and talking to teachers and administrators about what 

is going on in the home. 

As a teacher I often implemented a Saturday field trip. That was a way for me to help students get away 

from any type of trauma or dysfunction that they were dealing with. It was very inexpensive because we 

were in DC. We could just jump on the bus for free. We could go to the Capitol. We could go to the library. 

They could be introduced to different books and I would bring them back oftentimes people would 

respond to us to even have lunch, but these are ways that you can help children see their city as a way to 

get away from things or help them build skills that they need in order to better themselves. 

The next thing I would say is that as a classroom teacher and as an administrator, it is very important that 

the classroom be safe and supportive. And I think David did a wonderful job of discussing this because 

often times teachers can be the biggest proponent of bias. Teachers definitely have to be aware because 

sometimes you can trigger a child without even knowing you are triggering a child, your tone of voice, the 

way in which you move about the classroom. What we do is we use something called cadence strategies 

and basically what that says is, we try to use instructional approaches that facilitate collaboration, 

cooperation, trust, and independence. Often times in a classroom students have to turn and talk, they 

have to work with each other to solve a problem, the idea that two students can talk to one another and 

not be cheating is what we champion because we want students to trust one another, to look at each 

other as resources, to look to the adult in the room as a resource, and for the adults to be able to say I 

don't know the answer to all the questions, let's figure it out together. Those are skills and dispositions 

that students dealing with trauma really need. 

Another instructional approach that we try to implement is that we try to use something called biblio 

therapy. What that means is we try to use books and things within book to help students understand what 

they are actually going through. Let me give you an example.

Often times, in urban areas, you have a large proportion of students who are behind academically, and this 

can cause a lot of shame. There is a book called Thank You, Mr. Falker, which deals with a young lady who 

has difficulty reading, despite the fact that her entire family can read. Through using that book, we help 

students understand some individuals have difficulty with reading, some individuals don't. But we want 

them to make that connection to understand that there are loving individuals in the building who are willing 

to help them navigate the difficulties. 

There are other books. Dear Mr. Henshaw which talks about a young man name Lee Botts, whose family is 

going through a difficult divorce. We actually use the themes within the books to help them understand 

that other individuals have gone through things that they have gone through, and that in going through

these situations they are always trusting adults who are going to help them and are willing to help them 

without bias and shame. 

Here is the thing, the good news is that despite the effects of trauma, despite the fact that trauma can 

cause an individual to have difficulty regulating themselves , the brain is actually very malleable, and it 
develops. They can actually fix the effects of stress on the child's brain. We can help them overcome this, 

but the key is trust. The antidote to traumatic stress is trust and it is incumbent upon school leaders to 

make sure they are their buildings are filled with individuals equipped to deal with the stress and most, are 

loving and caring, they have structures in place that support the child, most important, they exude love and 

trust to all students so that they feel comfortable within the building. 

At this point, I am going to pass it off to Kendall, was going to talk to us about his own personal experiences. 

Kendall, are you with us?

Yes, I am here. 

Great. We are so glad you could join us today and we appreciate you sharing some of your personal 

experiences with us. We thought we would start with you telling us just a little bit about yourself, and you 

can share what ages you involved with foster care and then living with your grandmother and when the 

incarceration of your mother happened and then what you are doing right now. 

Okay. I experienced the foster care system about a year and a half. I was 10 at the time and then my 

grandmother gained custody of me at the age of 11 when I moved in with her, and I was in the fourth grade 

at the time and finished out fourth grade and then went on to the fifth grade. 

That is when I entered US Dream Academy at the fifth grade, and it wasn't until later on in high school that 

my mother was incarcerated and I was 17 at the time. Now, I finished high school. I graduated in June 14th

of this year and now I am a freshman at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. 

That is so great. We love to hear all the things you overcame and were able to get to college. When you 

were young and had an absent and then incarcerated parent, what were some of the challenges you faced? 

Some of the challenges that I faced was having an identity, motivation, and purpose. I didn't have a sense 

of direction, where I was or who was going to be. No individuality. I did not know how to express my 

feelings. I did not know how to express my ideas and feelings in a way for people to understand. 

And during your mother's absence and incarceration, was school a safe place for you to go and a place 

where you felt that you could grow and learn in a safe place? 

The first school was not because when I first came -- during my mother's absence -- it was okay. It was a 

safe place for the most part at that time because I had my mentors behind me and the staff was behind 

me, so if I needed anyone to talk to they were there. Or if they noticed if I was acting out a certain way 

during my academic progress, if my progress decreased or if I was failing in a certain course that I normally 

would be doing great at, then it would have caused problems and grades dropped something was wrong. 

And so you started to mention your mentor and earlier you mentioned your grandmother and I believe 

your aunt. Can you tell us about who has helped to overcome some of the challenges? Was it your 

caregivers, mentor, any staff specifically at your school or other people? 

Yes. My aunt was really a big part when I had difficulty with work, she was always there to help me. And 

especially my grandmother because she me and my sister out of foster care and adopted us, and also 

having a mentor component was really beneficial because I could really grow with a father figure in my life. 

So having those men being a part of my life was very significant for me to become the person, the man that 

I am becoming. And my teachers, they was there, too , the principal, the founder of Dream Academy, he 
stood behind me and they encouraged me and pushed me to go beyond my limits and showed me ways 

overcome and how opportunities could be created from it, and so they just changed my perspective on 

things. 

We know that the dream Academy uses trauma informed approaches, which we heard from both David 

and Dwight talking about the importance of those at a school. Can you tell me how the Academy is 

different from the schools you attended prior to that? 

Okay. The difference was the mental component. Dream Academy having a mental component was very y 

beneficial because you have that male figure that comes into your life. Going through what I was going 

through, I wasn’t very much of an open person and didn't trust anybody and wasn’t big even talking about 

what I was going through, because I felt like you just don't talk about them. Talking about that made it 

worse or whatever. But having that open, what they call an open circle, all the kids come down to the open 

circle and you can express your feelings. And then once you hear, you let out what’s inside that you’ve been 

holding in, it actually feels, good letting it out. You also see that other kids around that are also going to 

similar situations, so it is not just you. You come to find out, you are not alone in this, that you are not the 

only one going through the situation. But for me to see that, I am not the only one and there are also other

kids going through this, it was like, wow.

Yeah, that sounds like it would be helpful knowing that you are not alone. 

Yeah.

There are teachers and school staff members on this call, as well as other people who work with youth in a 

variety of settings and environments and at different organizations. What would you like to tell them 

about how they can help students who have a parent whose is incarcerated and how they can help 

students feel safe and comfortable and nurtured at school? 

I would say having after school programs would be great for those students. Getting them to open up. A lot 

of kids hold in those emotions and those things that they are going through, and the figure of a good way 

for them to get it out, for them express themselves, and let the child know that they are not alone and 

relate to them in any way, and motivate them would be good also.

Okay. Do you have some ideas for ways they can assist children of incarcerated parents? 

They could assist them by -- [Pause] --

Kendall, are you still there? 

Hello. It just paused for a second. I didn’t know what happened. I was talking. You could assist them by 

creating afterschool programs, letting the child know that they are not alone , and getting them to just 

really be able to open up, showing ways that their situation can create opportunities, or what they are 

going through doesn’t have to be bad, it can actually be a good thing neither good things in a some ways. 

You don't have to let your circumstances hold you down. 

That is really helpful, Kendall, and we appreciate so much you sharing your story with us, your personal 

information, and what you went through. 

Right now I think we are going to go over to question and answers, and my colleague Simon Gonsoulin is

going to facilitate that. We have received questions via email. We have also received some from the chat 
box during the webinar, so we are going to start with a few questions. If folks want to continue to send 

questions into the chat box, that would be welcome, and we do apologize again for the technical difficulties. 

We will be sharing those slides and the recording afterwards. 

I will turn it over to Simon. 

Thanks, Juliette, I appreciate that. With over 600 participants, we have gotten quite a few questions. The 

first thing I wanted to do was to mention to our presenters who will be answering, as we have gotten 

questions and from participants in, they’ve asked you to be as specific as possible in giving suggestions. 

That was one of the things that we had gotten from a couple participants. Especially around strategies. 

What I'm going to do is identify the question and ask one of you to get the ball rolling with a response. 

Everyone does not have to respond to a question, but I figured I could identify that first-person and as you 

want to add to the conversation, please feel free to do so. 

The first question I am going to start with Ann and the first question is when working with very young 

children, say children under five years of age, what are the best strategies in supporting of their emotional 

needs when they have a parent who is incarcerated? 

We can hear you. 

You can hear me? 

Yes. It is coming in loud and clear. 

Okay. For very young children, the supports are going to begin with and emanate from the primary 

caregivers, and so involving the caregivers in a process is really important. I am just going to suggest a 

couple things that apply to very young kids, but also to older kids. When I talked about universal outreach, I 

meant universal to children of incarcerated parents in a sense that not just looking at one zip code or one 

particular demographic. So if you did a training, for instance, for children of incarcerated parents and you 

send it home in a newsletter in a preschool program or your school that you participated in that and 

followed it up with an announcement that there is a new picture book being put into the library or new 

book Visiting Day by Jacqueline Woodson or perhaps Daniel Davies Knock, and those are both for very 

young children, and then you announce that, and then maybe a little bit later you could maybe suggest 

that there might be an evening discussion on managing children of incarcerated parents feelings, for very 

young children, the same process could be for older kids and families. But would start with very young kids 

and the caregiver would be significant and also the idea of biblio therapy and using books. The question I 

always ask programs for young kids is we put those books in your day care center or your kindergarten even 

if you didn't know you had children of incarcerated parents in there. And so it sensitizes the entire group of 

kids to the fact that this is a reality. 

One example of a preschool in Chicago who does mystery readers for their pre-K and kindergarten, and the 

kids don't know who the mystery readers are, somebody from their family, usually. The grandmother told 

the school that the child’s dad was incarcerated, he belongs to a book on tape program in the facility where 

he could read books that got sent home to his child. So they used that as the mystery reader. It really 

created almost a whole year-long process of the kids started writing letters to the child’s dad in prison and 

it made the boy feel comfortable talking about it to peers as well as staff. 

David, would you want to add? 
Thank you, Ann. I think if we listen to Kendall and he mentioned the role of his aunt and one the role of the

grandparent, I think it is important to realize that there are often people in children’s families, who are not 

incarcerated who are there to support and to reach out to them. And at the same time is very important, if

schools can, to try to reach out and engage the incarcerated parent, and it involve being family driven with 

them and it also involves in some cases helping them know how can they handle the situation well, what 

can we say to their children, how can they support their children. In a federally supported center that 

Simon runs, I remember a presentation that Simon's team had brought together from schools who were 

really working with, I should say institutions, that were working with incarcerated parents to support them 

in making connections to their children. While would be nice if most jails and prisons would do that, we 

can't expect that right now. What the schools are to do is to do the opposite and make that outreach. 

Thank you. Dwight, we have a question we would like to pose to you. How can educators serve as critical 

partners in making a difference in the lives of incarcerated parents, not the children, but the parent? 

I think that again his goes back to something that Ann and David said. I think often times, and certainly as a 

teacher, I was guilty of this, sometimes we are not aware of the biases that we hold. And I think 

sometimes, and this is not all educators, but belief systems are like oxygen. Oxygen is there. We cannot see 

it, but we breathe it, and sometimes we have these biases that we just are not aware of. And I think the 

most critical thing that we can do, number one, is just try to examine ourselves and try to be aware of that 

because oftentimes, if a child is misbehaving, often times some teachers may say that is just a bad child. 

The child is not bad. The child may be dealing with something very difficult, and because the child is dealing 

with something difficult, the child has difficulty handling that. And then what happens is the child becomes 

bad and then the parents become bad, instead of the entire family dealing with a very difficult situation. 

And so if we are able to say there is no such thing as a bad child, and that children are dealing with 

traumatic stress, just like adult deal with traumatic stress, and the question becomes how do I help. And 

they want to get to the place of how can I help, then it becomes how do extend myself? How do I reach 

out to this parent or the auntie or uncle. One thing that Kendall said that I felt was right on point is that he 

said the afterschool programs were so beneficial. At our school, we have multiple children that were doing 

what they incarcerated, and the first thing I said was here are my best teachers working at the school. How 

can I get these particular children into our afterschool program so that they have more time with this 

positive individuals, some of them are male some of them are female, they would get a certain type of 

support. This will also support a grandparent or the auntie or uncle who have to pick them up, so that it 

becomes how do we get to support that entire family instead of seeing the child as something negative. 

How do I provide support via the school that will buttress this child a bit more against the stress they are 

dealing with. I think those are very practical things. If a parent is gone, someone has to help out. So how 

can the school extend its reach a little bit, how can we get a child enrolled in a particular program that goes 

a little bit longer, how can we -- are there other partners that the we work with that can provide food, gifts, 

clothes, the different things that can be provided, but I think those are just on very practical level --

practical things that can be done and I hope that answers the question. 

Can I add to that? 

Please do, Ann. 

I think there is a lot of good research that says parental identity is really necessary for reentry success with

your child for reunification. And so that sense of parental identity meaning I feel like a parent while I am 

locked is hard to maintain and in some cases to achieve for the first time and to maintain it if you had it 

before incarceration. That parental identity -- it is about the everyday things. To the extent that we can 

send report cards to the incarcerated parent, can send them a note home, we have had tons of really good 

programs around the country that had the incarcerated parent reading the same book the child is required 
to read, mentoring programs that are helping kids keep journals of what to say on the phone when they talk 

to that parent, ideas for things that they can keep track of, but all of that requires basically the caregiver’s 

cooperation. They are the gatekeepers. And so often one of the big roadblocks is that the caregivers are not 

really in the best relationship with the incarcerated parent, and they may not give permission or even the 

information about the incarcerated parent. Again, reaching out to the caregivers and helping to provide 

them with information. One more thing, none of this can happen if the child isn't told the truth about their 

parents’ incarceration, which is another really common roadblock. So having materials available in the 

school and also sending them to the incarcerated parent when you can, about how to talk to children about 

parental incarceration, and so those things could be available to both caregivers and the incarcerated 

parent to maintain a connection. 

Okay. I appreciate that. There is another question, and Ann, we're going to toss this one to you, if you don’t 

mind. Is it better for the child to have school personnel know their parents’ incarceration or the better 

that the family current caregiver advocate for the child's needs? What has been your experience? It might 

be different for each child, but I wanted to throw the question of there. 

Can you clarify the second part of the question? Is it better for the school staff to know or? 

I believe the participate is saying is it better for the caregiver to navigate or work with the school staff and 

advocate for their child in identifying his or her needs? 

Without revealing there is an incarcerated parent project, I guess. That’s correct.

It is the universal question for this work , and there is not a lot of research that helps us, except in 

borrowing from other bodies of knowledge that when parents have cancer, when they're getting divorced, 

when moving to a new home, it is better to tell kids , the sooner the better, in small doses, weaving it into 

everyday conversations rather than clobbering them over the head with it the night before. I think that is 

true as a therapist. It is true for this topic, that when kids know a little bit at a time over a period of time, 

they do better. We need more research about that, but we know anxiety is diminished kids know the truth

about things, so that would apply. The point is this is a complicated topic with lots of shame and lots of 

anger, and having materials in the school that helps parents, I always say schools can be very beneficial in 

helping parents come to that decision about truth telling, but it should be the caregivers and parents to 

talk to the kids about it, not the school, if that is what the questioner was asking. And it raises the issue, 

huge, huge issue that confidentiality is very important and families will talk about it when they can, when 

they feel safe , and a lot of systems are asking for collaboration, child welfare and corrections and law 

enforcement saying we should notify the school, and we as advocates are saying please don't. Let the 

caregivers notify the school unless there is an emergency because school personnel are trained to deal with 

biases. It could be used against the child and the Blair and Owl study helps us with that. I would say it is 

best for families to advocate -- it is best for schools to create an atmosphere of trust and safety so families 

tell the school what is going on and that information is used to support children rather than sort by either 

the identify them for services, for instance. And how we asked the question of families matter. If we say, if

somebody in your family incarcerated, it is different than having a poster of the Sesame Street materials 

up in the counselor’s office that says if incarceration is a family member an issue for your family, let us 

know because we can help. How you ask, supporting truth telling, and know there is no research that says 

that, but that clinical interventional wisdom was says that kids who know truth are less anxious.

Thanks, Ann. We have another question and I think we touched on this on response around staff in school 

such as guidance counselors, social workers, administrators. Have you experienced quality professional 

development for guiding staff, administrators in helping vulnerable children, including children of 
incarcerated parents? Are there any type of professional type opportunities that any of the speakers of are 

aware of that might be able to help school staff in addressing needs of children that are traumatized? 

First of all, I think it’s the point that all of us have made, particularly Dwight, is the fact that teachers need 

and other school staff need to understand about trauma and how it manifests itself, and the importance of 

doing the types of things that Dwight talked about in terms of the fact that every time one responds to an 

evocation in a way that tends to be negative and counter aggressive, it is a risk of re-traumatizing and 

even if you are not re-traumatizing, you are making that child more aversive to other adult intervention. So 

people need to understand that they have to understand how trauma manifests itself in the behaviors of 

young people. I want to add the fact that that is not the only piece. They also have to be aware of how 

knowledge of the child and the child's background can contribute to a whole set of low or lowered 

expectations and other reactions that may not be helpful, and so I very much agree with the hypothesis of 

Ann about wanting everyone to be transparent about what things are. What that really requires also is

providing personal development so that we develop the growth mindset in teachers, not just children. That 

they can look at a child of an incarcerated parent or someone else who is experiencing trauma and know

that the literature on resilience consistently demonstrate many people overcome adversity. They overcome 

adversity because they have resilience supporting environment, resilience support adults around them, but 

know you cannot look at a child as fixed. I will also tell you as both the parent and grandparent of children 

who have had incarcerated parents, that there are strengths in parents are incarcerated and what adults 

need to know is enough to look at a parent who is incarcerated as someone will happen to the 

incarcerated who happens to be a parent and also to know the data around incarceration that makes it 

much more likely if you look a certain way that you will be incarcerated for behavior that if you don't look

a certain way, you will not be. Similarly, that is issues of class and language. And I bet Dwight has 

something he could add to this.

I think both Ann and David, your response is so profound, but this takes me back to something I said earlier 

about home visit. I just want to paint a quick picture. Let's say you are a parent who lives in my 

neighborhood of Trinidad, there is a very low SES, so pretty impoverished, and your experiences with 

educational system has not been the best, although you may know someone who had great experiences, 

did not have a great experiences with your teachers, and now you have a child. You were much younger 

than you wanted to be. You the best intentions, but you had a child young, and now you have to send your 

child to the same school you went to a had all these negative experiences, but somehow some way the 

adults in the building are expecting you to trust them wholeheartedly. That is not a reality. This is why 

home visit in our school were so important because what it demonstrated to the parents was that there is 

something different happening at the school. It is so profound and different that we are coming to you. We 

value you. We want to come to your home. We want to know what you know about your child because 

guess what, you are the expert and we need to learn from you. That is a radical shift. And so I think once we 

started to implement the home visit, the parent started to respond to us and respond to me totally 

differently. What I would call on the phone, instead of it ringing and ringing and going to voicemail, the 

person would pick up on the first rank, pay Mr. Davis, what’s going on, is something wrong. No. I just 

wanted to tell you your child had a great day. 

It starts with being very intentional about letting parents know and letting students know that we can be 

trusted and that the experiences -- because the past can be very dangerous. In many ways we live our today 

through the length of the past. Schools really have to do a great job of messaging and demonstrating to 

parents that the school is a very trusting environment and that the adult are worthy and can be trusted. 

That is critical. 

The last question, thank you, David and Dwight, is for Kendall. Kendall are you still with us? 
Yes. 

Alright, great. We heard from Ann, David, Dwight talk about this trust caring adult. What are the 

characteristics of some caring, trusting mentors or teachers in your background, in your experience that 

have really helped you overcome some challenges as a young man, as an adolescent, as an a young adult? 

They really show a sense of gratitude and they open their self to community or to the child. A child can tell 

instantly if they don't need well, if the adult doesn't mean well because the child has a natural instinct for 

that. How the adult approaches the child and that they can relate to the child and they are open to the 

child, usually if they are open the child is willing to open themselves as well. The child feels that they are 

comfortable with them and the child can feel that they are caring and showing gratitude, and I think those 

are the two biggest things that helped me, if the adult was caring. It wasn't like a sense of sympathy . It was 

more of a sense that they really showed interest in my problem and wanted to really help me and pushed 

me forward 

Thank you, Kendall. We appreciate the response. 

Simon, can I add to that the other question about professional development. Three categories of 

professional development that it would be helpful. One is what David is talking about, about the overall 

trauma and trauma informed practice and understanding how all of the things that impact kids lives, 

impact them at school. 

The second is specifically about children of incarcerated parents. For instance, a math teacher could add a 

problem into her work saying if people were trying 25 miles an hour and it took them three hours to get to 

the prison to visit their mom, how fast were they going? That kind of problem is a teacher did put into the 

curriculum and a child that she had no clue hadn't incarcerated parent came up to her and said, Ms. soand-so, when we go we take the bus, how fast does that go? All of a sudden there is an intro to

conversation. The second category is specifically that can be done to help make it easier and safer for kids 

of incarcerated parents. 

The third is professional development around communicating with kids to help them to talk without 

peppering them with questions and being respectful about confidentiality on a lot of issues. I think looking 

for all of those types of professional development about what Kendall was saying about support as well.

Thank you. I would like to get David 32nd for the comments and then why, if you would pick up after 

And I’d like to give David 30 seconds for a few final comments and Dwight if you’d like to pick up after 

David.

First, with children and parents of incarcerated, who were incarcerated, have strengths that we need to 

build. Even if they are struggling, we need to build those strengths. Second, in addition to the goodwill that 

adults who working in schools have in general, we have to build their proficiencies and their capacity to 

care and that includes providing them with support of understanding that this is not easy and that they 

have strengths that they can build to rise to the occasion. 

And it is to something that is very simple. Antidote to stress and trauma is trust , and so until we 

understand that, we are not helping children. So the most critical thing that we must get to a place where 

we can examine our biases and acknowledge we had them and work towards trust because every adult , 

every parent, no matter who it is, they love their children. 
Dwight, David, Kendall, and Ann thank you so much for Q&A session and also for sharing your resources 

and expertise with us on a webinar. I will turn things over to Juliette, my colleague, who will finish things up 

for the day. 

We want to conclude for the day and thank you so much for joining us. We do apologize for the technical 

issues, and since some of you cannot see it on your screen, I will read out our email address. 

youthgov@AIR.org. Feel free to email us with any further questions you have and you can visit 

youth.gov/coip for more resources. This webinar will be archived there along with the tip sheet for 

teachers and other resources. There is also listserv specifically for issues related to children of incarcerated 

parents. If you're interested in that listserv, you can let us know so that you can receive updates and

information on new product, resources, and events like this one. 

Finally, I want to thank Ann, Dwight, David, and Kendall for being with us today and sharing valuable 

information. Their contact information is available on the screen. If you can't see it, again you can email us 

at youthgov@air.org. Thank you so much to the 500 people that stuck it out even with issues with the 

slides. 

Thank you very much and have a great day. 

[Event Concluded]