CHAMPS

New Creations Community Outreach has created a superlative program that focuses on helping the children of prisoners and ex-prisoners. This program is called CHAMPS: Children Having a Mind to Pursue Success.

Why We All Need CHAMPS
More than two million children nationwide have parents incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails. Many more have experienced the incarceration of a parent at some point in their lives. Since 1991, the number of children with parents in prison has increased by more than 50%. While most children have a father absent due to incarceration, a growing number-currently 10%-have a mother who is incarcerated.

Children of inmates have their own unique problems: Their families may suffer a decrease in income or be forced onto public assistance; they may change residences and schools after the incarceration, leaving kids to make new friends and learn to cope in a new environment. Because of the severe hardships they often face, these children suffer many difficult social and emotional issues, and need special attention and care to heal.

How does CHAMPS Work?
CHAMPS operates in partnership with local churches, which provide transportation resources, a place to hold meetings, and facilitators to lead parenting classes and children's groups. Churches may provide vans and drivers, and volunteers are asked to participate in the program.

CHAMPS takes a support-group approach to addresses the emotional trauma experienced by children who currently or recently have a parent in prison. Volunteers from local churches that currently work with New Creations are trained as group facilitators.

Groups consisting of 10 to 12 children, based on age and grade level, run for 12 weeks. During 10 of those weeks, the children participate in support groups that teach them to identify and successfully overcome issues and feelings about their parent's incarceration. Two of the 12 weeks are spent in fun activities, such as field trips.

At CHAMPS, we target the children of current TOP participants. We also collaborate with other community organizations that work with at-risk youth, such as Prison Fellowship and V.I.P. Mentoring. Our goal is to build the resiliency of these children, enabling them to better cope with the emotional trauma of having a parent in prison.

Program Goals
The following objectives have been established for the CHAMPS program:

• Objective 1: To teach children and youth coping skills that will enable them to better express and manage their emotions about having a parent in prison.
• Objective 2: To teach social skills to the children and youth that will enable them to have more rewarding interactions with others.
• Objective 3: To increase the collaborating organizations' and churches' ability to deliver effective programs to the children of prisoners and ex-prisoners.

For information on how your church or agency can become involved, please call (313) 875-3883.

MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership

MENTOR: Mentoring Children of Prisoners: Caregiver’s Choice is an innovative project connecting children of incarcerated parents to quality mentoring. The project allows mentoring programs to access additional funding and resources to serve this unique population and provides caregivers with redeemable vouchers for free mentoring services for children between 4 and 18 under their care.

www.mentoring.org/find_resources/caregiverschoice

Brochure information

MENTOR is an independent organization and is not directly affiliated with New Creations Community Outreach.