Training & Support

Parenting Inside/Out
Parent Education Curriculum

Parenting Inside/Out is a 12 week, 36-session parent training curriculum designed specifically to instruct in appropriate and effective parenting from prison. The instructional design is based on two primary sources: a research-based curriculum developed at the Oregon Social Learning Center over the past forty years and the practice-based curriculum developed over the past twenty years by numerous parent educators and therapists in various correctional departments, including the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) program includes two parts:

• Parent training for the incarcerated parent
• Information packets mailed to study caregivers each month with follow up phone calls.

This program is a preventive intervention that focuses on parenting skill instruction and practice. Each class session is two and one-half hours and follows a prescribed format, beginning with emotional regulation practice and concluding with a reading practice session. Most classes include brief lectures, viewing of illustrative video clips, team projects, simulations, discussion groups and role-playing, and application activities to real-life situations. Examples of weekly class topics include setting effective limits, effective speaking, listening, and problem solving, and child development.

Currently a 5-year randomized controlled trial of parent management training for incarcerated parents is in progress. This study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, includes 200 incarcerated men, 200 incarcerated women, a sample of their children and the caregivers of their children. The study will be completed in 2008 and a number of preliminary papers are in progress.

Why PIO Is So Effective With Inmate

Approximately 60% of state and federal prisoners in the U.S. have at least one child under the age of 18 years. In 1999, prisons held the parents of over 1.5 million children, accounting for 2% of the entire population of minors in the country. The children of incarcerated parents are an “at risk” population. Parent criminality is related to serious and violent child delinquency, and there is evidence that parent criminality influences child behavior through parenting practices. Given this evidence, one way to break the intergenerational transmission of criminality might be to change the way that incarcerated parents and the caregivers of their children parent during and after incarceration.

While there are many parenting programs that have been delivered within prisons across the country, very little is known about whether these programs make a difference in the lives of the children of incarcerated parents. Based on a national review conducted in 2002, these programs tend to either be non-standardized, non-research based programs developed by an individual practitioner or programs developed for families outside of the correctional environment. A variety of preventive-focused parenting programs have been developed and been shown to be effective through research, but these programs appear to have had little effect on prison-based parenting programs.

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) was created to bring the best from the research and practitioner worlds to parenting education in corrections. PIO was developed by a team from the non-profit Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), a research center dedicated to the development, testing, and refinement of research-based programs for children and families, and the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC), which over the past several years has pioneered the “Oregon Accountability Model”, a multifaceted corrections approach intended to provide a solid foundation for inmates to lead successful lives upon release.

The core content of PIO comprises the research based parenting practices of encouragement, supervision/monitoring, discipline, and problem solving.

Effect techniques for teaching skills in these areas are drawn from existing research- based “parent management training” (PMT) programs. PMT is considered the “best practice” in parenting education, and versions of PMT have been nominated as such by several federal agencies and professional organizations, as well as numerous peer reviews in scientific journals.

In 2003, OSLC was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the impact of Parenting Inside Out on incarcerated parents, their children, and the caregivers of their children. When complete in 2008, the study will include over 400 male and female inmates and their families, monitored for up to 6 months following release from prison. This will be the largest, most scientifically rigorous study of a prison parenting program ever conducted.

For further information on research relevant to PIO, conduct Dr. Mark Eddy, Research Scientist and Licensed Psychologist at the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene, 541-485-2711 or marke@oslc.org.

What Topics Are Covered In the Curriculum?

• Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment
• Communication and Problem Solving
• Connecting with Your Child
• Child Development
• Healthy Families
• Nurturing Your Child’s Individuality
• Individual Meetings and Graduation Preparation
• Child Guidance
• More Child Guidance
• Special Needs
• Your Life in the Community
• Preparing to Say Good-bye

"And How are the Children?"
Multi-Disciplinary Curriculum

The overall purpose of this curriculum is to raise awareness of how parental incarceration impacts children and to provide strategies for communities and their justice partners to work together to better meet the needs of these children. The issues associated with Children of Incarcerated parents are community issues and as such these issues are best addressed by a community response.

School personnel are often the first to come in contact with these children. Local law enforcement agencies often have the first opportunity to work with families to ensure that the children are safe and provided for at the time of arrest. Corrections works primarily with the parents, however, family stability is important for the success of the inmate, parolee or probationer. Local child welfare agencies will in all likelihood be called upon to help meet child and family needs. Community programs provide “protective factors” that help children manage and possibly overcome the effects of parental incarceration. As agencies, as community-based providers, as schools, parents and neighbors, we all have a part to play in making life better for these children.

This curriculum will help each to learn strategies that can be implemented to help children of incarcerated parents maintain connections to their parents and to deal with the impact of trauma and loss.