"This training is an opportunity for our
counselors to learn how to assist these students who face a
variety of issues as a result of their parents being
incarcerated, " said Charlotte Winkelmann, Assistant Director of
Student Support Services for AISD.
The training, which will feature author Bernstein, Dee Ann
Newell, whose work is to develop local, regional, or state
strategies that will further the much-needed, larger national
advocacy effort on behalf of children of incarcerated parents,
and Ann Adalist-Estrin of the Child Welfare League of America.
The three experts will address the training needs of more than
200 mentors, AISD counselors, parent support specialists and
counselors from agencies that work with school students.
Winkelmann said this is the first time that the agencies have
worked with the school district on this issue. Look below
for more information on these outstanding speakers.
In addition to the training, a panel discussion will be held at
the Wednesday training session that will include representatives
from the Travis County Sheriff's Office, Child Protective
Services, the Victim Services Division of the Austin Police
Department, the Austin School District and a caregiver of
children whose father is incarcerated.
Sari Waxler, Executive Director of the Seedling Foundation, said
the reception and training create an opportunity to begin a
dialogue about a problem in our community that has been in the
shadows for too long. The Seedling Foundation has created
Seedling's Promise, a mentoring program that creates healthy
relationships between children of incarcerated parents and
caring adults in the Austin community.
"People who work with the children of incarcerated parents will
tell you that these children do time while their parents do time
because of the shame and stigma attached," she said.
Waxler said that conservative estimates based on the number of
incarcerated adults in Travis County suggest that there may be
as many as 2,000 children in the Austin School District who have
a parent in the correctional system.
(On site media contact for the Headliner's Club reception is
Sari Waxler at 323-6371. Principals and mentors as well as Ms.
Bernstein, Ms. Newell, and Ms. Adalist-Estrin will be available
for interviews.)SEEDLING
FOUNDATION THANKS THE AUSTIN/TRAVIS COUNTY RE-ENTRY ROUNDTABLE
FOR THEIR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THIS EVENT.
Our Speakers:
Nell Bernstein
Nell Bernstein is the author of All Alone in
the World: Children of the Incarcerated. She is also the
editor of Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Bill of Rights,
and the coordinator of the San Francisco Children of
Incarcerated Parents Partnership.
Nell's interest in children began while she was
in college. She worked in a shelter for runaway and homeless
teens. Later she spent a year as a counselor at a group home
for hard-to-place foster youth. Those early experiences led to
a lifelong interest in listening to and attempting to present to
a wider audience the voices of young people living on the
margins.
Ms. Bernstein’s writings have appeared in many
national publications. Her book All Alone in the World,
won the PASS Award from the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency, was selected as “Pick of the Week” by Newsweek
Magazine, a best book of the year by the San Francisco
Chronicle, and a top ten book of the year by the Online Review
of Books.
Bernstein has also worked as a consultant to the
California Research Bureau, conducting interviews with children
of incarcerated parents, exploring the mental health needs of
young people in and exiting the foster care and juvenile justice
systems, and producing and moderating monthly youth panels at
the legislature. She currently coordinates the San Francisco
Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership.
Ann
Adalist-Estrin
Ann is a nationally known and respected expert on
children and families of prisoners. She currently serves as
director of the National Resource Center on Children and
Families of the Incarcerated for the Family Corrections
Network. She is also a Senior Fellow of the child Welfare
League of America, and consultant for hundreds of mentoring
children of prisoners programs across the country. Ann has been
a child and family therapist for more than twenty-five years,
currently practicing at BRIDGES/Samaritan Counseling centers in
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Ann is an author, speaker, and
consultant to a variety of agencies serving children and
families and is widely published in the field of mentoring.
Dee Ann Newell
Dee Ann is a
Soros Justice Fellow in the Open Society Institute which
supports outstanding individuals to implement innovative
projects that address criminal justice priorities. Dee Ann was
director of services for children of prisoners and their
families and co-founded Arkansas Voices, which advocates for the
rights and well-being of children with parents behind bars. She
was the Project Director of one of the five Demonstration Sites
for Children of Prisoners, federally funded by the Clinton
administration. Her program model, Family Matters, was
identified in the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s
evaluation as the most promising model of services for children
of prisoners.
Dee Ann is
with the national Children Bill of Rights (BOR) Project and is
the national consultant who is working with several sites
(including Austin) to help actualize the Children’s Bill of
Rights project in their localities.
