The Connecting Through Literacy: Incarcerated Parents, Their Children, and Caregivers (CLICC) Mentoring for Children with Incarcerated Parents program released a Program Evaluation Report earlier this month. CLICC, also known as the “Connecting Through Literacy: Incarcerated Parents, Their Children, and Caregivers”, is a Connecticut-based non-profit. The program utilizes mentorship and literacy to strengthen relationships between children and their incarcerated parents with the goal of reducing parental recidivism alongside child shame and stigma. The Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy’s (IMRP) Connecticut Children with Incarcerated Parents Initiative (CTCIP) conducted the three year evaluation.

Mentoring and literacy within the program included:

• Reading Books
• One-on-one mentoring for children
• Group parenting for incarcerated parents

Surveys were administered to the children’s caregivers at the start of the program and 12 months later. The survey found a reduction in emotional, behavioral, attentional and relationship difficulties.

The small sample size, COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of comparative group were considered limitations. Nonetheless researchers saw a promising result. You can read their final report online now.