A program led by the Indiana University School of Medicine that provides education and support to incarcerated mothers has received a nearly $470,000 grant from the Early Years Initiative.
According to IU, the Promises of Parenting Program is a “maternal attachment and infant education program” developed for mother-baby pairs in the Leath Unit Nursery of the Indiana Women’s Prison. The program will provide parenting education and support, opportunities for mothers and infants to bond, and foundational play materials. There will also be education, training and support for service providers in the Leath Unit.
“Pregnant and parenting women experiencing incarceration require specialized support, health education and parenting information to improve parenting outcomes, foster healthy child development and decrease recidivism,” said Jack Turman, principal investigator of the project. “Infants taken from their incarcerated mother are at high risk of toxic stress, which can alter a child’s neurochemistry and anatomy, inhibiting healthy growth and development. Throughout their lifetime, these children are also at an increased risk of experiencing poverty, multiple home and school displacements and even their own incarceration as adolescents and adults.”
According to Early Learning Indiana, the Indiana University Foundation has been awarded a $468,200 Early Years Initiative grant, which will go toward supporting the Promises of Parenting Program and leveraging a partnership with Resources for Infant Educarers on the project.
Furthermore, the pilot program has already served 18 mother-baby pairs, and IU officials hope to serve another 24 pairs per year for three years thanks to the grant.
During the Promises of Parenting Program, participating mothers will learn to “describe the qualities of respectful relationships, demonstrate the importance of supporting a child’s social-emotional development through healthy attachment, demonstrate confidence in understanding and meeting their child’s needs, and differentiate between parental and child emotions and the variables that impact them,” IU officials said.
According to Turman, the program also includes education and practice in topics such as bathing, diapering, feeding, playing sleeping and maternal self-care.
Mothers who have completed a class can repeat the same class as many times as desired until they are released from the unit.
“Repetition has proved itself to be a powerful teaching and learning tool for individuals who have experienced trauma,” Turman said. “It will also enable and empower mothers who have already been through the class to serve as in-unit mentors in subsequent classes. We have already seen relationships restored between the mothers and their older children as they work to apply the principles we teach them to the relationships with older children, and we look forward to seeing how these mothers share and disseminate the information they learn from the experience to those in their communities when they are released from prison.”
