The Mission:

We are seeking to help them strive Educationally, Economically, Politically, to build Social Development Skills, Organizational Skills and Unity. And if we use these six (6) elements I just mentioned as a guiding light, we believe that they will grow and develop into our future leaders of tomorrow. In the visions of this program and through this programs’ vision they’ll become a reckoning force of power beyond boundaries and without measures. If they trust, look, listen, and learn to see everything placed before them in its entire form, and to that all they have to do is keep their eyes, ears, and mind open and they will learn. All they have to do is use everything they have learned from our program to gain an advantage in life. With the concept of the five (5) P’s, which is our motto and stands for: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. Thus, meaning if we Properly Prepare them for the future we can Prevent Poor Performance in their lives--by giving them stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks--and that poor performance is being involved in drugs, guns, robberies, and several other crimes and mishaps and going in and out of jail. So, we are asking you, the parents and community, to lend a helping hand in making the J.I.T. Outreach Program a success and impact in giving our children a chance to live an auspicious, propitious, and fortunate future!!

Our main focus is helping these juveniles to seek a better path in life other than that of the streets; but in order to do so; we’ll need the help of those juveniles’ parents. If we show them Love, Life, Loyalty, Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding, we believe that we can capture their way of thinking at an early stage in life, we can help mold them into our future Lawyers, Doctors, Teachers, Police Officers, Fire Fighters, Governors, Senators, Contractors, etc. As we all know, it takes a village to raise child, and with the help of the parents and community, J.I.T Outreach Program will become that village. Even though I was once one of those juveniles involved in the street life, drugs and guns, I have made a major turn-around in my life and I am willing to help these juveniles make that same turn-around in life that I made through my experience. By being a positive role-model and being heavily involved with the children and their families to help keep them from making those same mistakes that I made or end up in one or two places that nobody wants to be: Jail or the Graveyard!!

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Monday, March 26, 2012

How are children in foster care affected by the incarceration of a parent?


The adverse emotional and behavioral consequences of parental incarceration and parent-child separation, children in foster care and their parents face additional challenges created by child welfare law, policy and practice. The most serious of these challenges is the risk that the legal parent-child relationship will be permanently severed through legal action by a child welfare agency. The 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act, requires states to file a petition to terminate parental rights on behalf of any child who has been abandoned or who has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months. The law provides exceptions to this requirement in the following cases: 1) at the option of the state, the child is being cared for by a relative, 2) the state has documented a compelling reason for determining that termination of parental rights would not be in the child’s best interest, or 3) the state has not provided the child’s family with services that the state deems necessary for the safe return of the child to his or her home.

      Although the Adoption and Safe Families Act does not explicitly require a termination of parental rights filing against incarcerated parents, the 15 of 22 months provision technically would apply in cases where reunification is delayed beyond 15 months due to a parent's incarceration, even if the parent is receiving services to facilitate reunification. Because the typical sentence for an incarcerated parent is from 80 to 100 months, most imprisoned parents of children in foster care are at risk of losing their parental rights.


      We lack the data, however, to know how ASFA actually affects the permanency outcomes for children in foster care whose parent is incarcerated. Some evidence suggests that the number of termination of parental rights cases that involved incarcerated parents increased following enactment of ASFA. Such cases were on the rise before ASFA enactment as well. A recent analysis of data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System examined the subset of children for whom parental incarceration was indicated as a reason for removal from home. The study found no significant difference in rates of reunification between these children and children in foster care whose parents were not incarcerated. Another study of children in the Minnesota child welfare system found that the vast majority of children who were placed in foster care from 2000 to mid-2007 due to incarceration of a parent ultimately were reunified with their parents. On the other hand, a study of mothers incarcerated in Illinois state prisons and the Cook County, Illinois, jail from 1990 to 2000 found that these mothers were one-half as likely to reunify with their children in foster care than were non-incarcerated mothers whose children were in foster care.

      Although ASFA requires a termination of parental rights filing in certain cases, it is state—not federal—law that defines legal grounds for such termination. Many state termination of parental rights laws include parental incarceration as a factor to be considered by courts in determining whether to grant a termination decree. Incarceration per se is not grounds for termination of parental rights in any state. In fact, six states expressly include this caveat in statute. Rather, states have defined a variety of conditions related to incarceration that, together with imprisonment, constitute grounds for termination. These conditions include length of confinement relative to the child’s age; failure to make provision for the child’s care; the quality of the parent-child relationship and the effect of incarceration thereon; pre-incarceration contact with and support of the child; repeated incarceration; failure to cooperate with the child welfare agency’s efforts to help with case planning and visitation; and the nature of the crime for which the parent is incarcerated. Another important distinction among state termination of parental rights statutes is that, although most states give judges some discretion in making termination decisions, others require judges to grant a decree upon proof of one or more statutory grounds.

      At least two states—California and Utah—set strict time limits on provision of reunification services. These time limits allow no exceptions, although California recently authorized courts, in limited circumstances, to extend the time limits for parents who are incarcerated, institutionalized or in residential substance abuse treatment. Nor are the time limits subject to judicial discretion. When the time allotted for reunification services expires, reunification no longer will be the child’s permanency goal, and the child welfare agency likely will move to terminate parental rights, unless an exception applies.



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