Read complete text articles by Frances Hesselbein, Randy Komisar, and Gary Hamel and Peter Skarzynski. This week's innovation aims to prevent intergenerational incarceration. Family Matters was developed in March 1996 by Centers for Youth and Families, in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the interest of children with incarcerated mothers.
Women represent the fastest growing population in prison.
Research indicates that children of incarcerated women are at risk for delinquent behavior and eventual incarceration as a result of multiple traumas throughout one or more stages of their development. Eighty percent of the 2,500 women in Arkansas in prison, community punishment, house arrest, on parole, or in jail, are mothers of children under the age of eighteen. Family Matters works with incarcerated mothers, their children and the current care givers of those children to prevent intergenerational incarceration through interventions with these high risk families. Because these families often struggle with complex and multiple problems, including severe poverty, the Centers collaborates with a number of local and state agencies to provide the wide range of supportive services the children and their care givers need. One of the most important components of the program has been the peer support that the children and caregivers experience.