What We Do
• Community Return
Families Free provides preparation and assistance services to incarcerated women as they re-enter society following release from the Johnson City Jail. Pre-release and post-release services will be provided on an individualized basis to assist clients in a stable, successful transition back into their communities and families.
• Community Impact
Through a joint collaborative, Families Free provides in-home family support services, family violence intervention services, and therapeutic family visitation services through needs-driven referrals from the TN Department of Children’s Services with the goal of enabling families to thrive and avoid future involvement with DCS and the Criminal Justice System. At this time, Families Free is unable to take referrals outside the DCS system; however, Families Free plans to offer these services to a wider audience as funding permits.
• Consulting
Families Free provides consultation and assistance in the following areas: female offender intervention, mentoring children of prisoners, educating/supporting children of prisoners, in-home family support services, professional development for individuals interfacing with vulnerable populations, community health issues, adjucated youth and children at-risk for entering the foster-care system (involving evidence-based, multi-systemic, and stregnths-based approaches.
• Advocacy
Families Free works to inform professionals working with this population through seminars and workshops at conferences. We also seek to inform the general public of the needs of these families and children through the public media.
• Research
Families Free supports research bringing a greater understanding of the factors impacting children of prisoners so that we may better serve them.
About our Programs
Our strategies to achieving our mission include…
• Encouraging and facilitating the development of a social network that may surround and support these vulnerable families.
• Conducting research to understand the complex and changing needs of this population.
• Placing knowledgeable workers inside home to help these families address their needs.
The development of healthy families is made possible by adequate access to resources and the social support of a community. Many families of prisoners are strained in both areas when a loved one becomes incarcerated. Due to many financial hardships linked to the person’s incarceration, many of these families lose their ability to obtain necessities and do not have the knowledge or means to access resources available in the community. And due to the stigma often attached with incarceration, these families often lose the support of families, friends, and even churches in their community.
Once a former offender returns to the home, a new set of difficulties is encountered. Many mothers and fathers, convicted of felony offenses, cannot get a job that will pay enough to sustain their families. They are not equipped or supported enough to navigate the systems that provide resources. Compounding these factors is the fact that many of these individuals may lack the financial management skills, decision making/coping skills, and parenting skills needed for a successful transition back into their families and communities. Unfortunately, our recidivism rates are showing that many of these individuals lack what is needed to prevent unhealthy returns to old habits and coping skills.
Families Free has taken time to investigate and understand the situation surrounding families of prisoners through stakeholder seminars, informal needs assessments, and one-on-one conversations with families and professionals working with this population. One fact is that simply not enough is known about these families and their situations to fully address the problems resulting. We have witnessed how these families are falling through the gaps of service provisions in our communities.
At this time, one of the most effective means in effecting change is to address the needs of the parents and families, as a whole. We are currently running 2 programs using evidence-based approaches and solutions supported by scientific literature. Please follow the links to learn more about each program!
