Our Programs
Children of incarcerated parents rarely receive the support they need as they do time with their parents. CPNYC’s model incorporates a holistic approach of addressing the needs of families impacted by parental incarceration and attacking the underlying root causes of the problem. Offering preventive services that are specific to the needs of the children and their families and allowing them to receive services close to home will create real and lasting social change to break the cycle of intergenerational incarceration.
CPNYC provides an outlet where they can feel normal, a venue where they can share their feelings, opinions and personal experiences. Their caregivers need assistance in finding a balance between their concerns for their children and coping themselves with the situation. This initiative creates a safe environment where children and caregivers can be honest and open without fear of judgment or shame. CPNYC moves beyond the spotty bandage approach of service implementation and brings about fundamental change by providing systematic, coordinated services which begins with an assessment of the family’s needs and extends services to the caregiver and family members.
Learn more about Children of Promise, NYC’s comprehensive services and how you can get involved.
Think back. Growing up and in your young adult life, who mentored you? Who supported and guided you? Who empowered and inspired you to discover new paths, recognize possibilities and realize your full potential? Mentoring is a structured, sustained, developmental relationship between a young person and a caring individual with the goal of offering support, building character and promoting healthy youth development. By being a positive role model, a mentor can help motivate a child to learn and achieve a viable, healthy path to adulthood. Best of all, mentoring is fun!
Academic enrichment and support provides innovative and creative group activities to build participants’ educational skills, motivation and engagement. Activities supplement, rather than replicate, school-day learning and may include learning strategies such as instruction embedded in the visual and expressive arts, self-directing learning, collaborative and group work, reading clubs, project based learning, and computer assisted instruction and community service projects.
Our recreational programs enrich all areas of a child’s development by providing an active life that is filled with excitement, self-confidence, discovery and fun.
Trauma leaves a mark and a continuum of traumas has an impact far greater than its sum. In addressing children who have been exposed to a continuum of traumas, no real, healthy progress can be made in the basic, necessary, everyday aspects of life until you address the damage that has been done and the maladaptive behavior created, most behavior is habitual, and to change negative behaviors you need to create new motivators, new habits, and new, desired reactions and rewards.
Recognizing that decisions made by the caregivers trickle down and affect the daily lives of the children, CPNYC extends support services to the guardians. Caring for the Caregiver allows the mother, father, grandmother or foster parent to find a support base of individuals who understand the stigma and the feelings of shame they often encounter as guardians of a child of a prisoner.
Family Connect focuses on working with caregivers to eliminate barriers that may exist in the lines of communication between children and their imprisoned parent, coordinate trips to correctional facilities and provide workshops to assist in understanding the regulations and protocols of jails and prisons. Specific features will include:
Breaking the Cycle Now is the large scale prevention advocacy project aimed at breaking the cycle if intergenerational incarceration through public service messaging, public policy and community outreach.