More than 2.7 million children had a parent incarcerated, and a Brooklyn organization is working to help some of them deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder and related anxiety that can result from it.
That’s the report of the Pew Charitable Trust, which said the number of parents in jails and prisons has skyrocketed since 1980.
“One of the best treatments for these children is trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT], which Children of Promise uses in its clinic,” BuzzFeed News reported.
“Trauma-focused CBT, which can take weeks or months with a trained therapist …, helps kids and parents find what triggers their strongest feelings and worst behaviors and teaches them how to redirect that energy in a more positive direction.”
“These traumas are similar to what’s experienced by the children of soldiers, whose parents leave and then come home changed. A flood of research over the past decade has focused on the mental health of military kids, and in 2012 President Obama issued an executive order to expand mental health services for military members and their families,” Buzzfeed reported.
“After three years spent fund-raising, hiring staff and screening and training mentors, the organization opened its doors in a church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Brooklyn neighborhood with one of the city’s highest incarceration rates. It’s the only after-school program for this population in New York,” Buzzfeed reported.
Sharon Content founded the organization in 2006 with government grants and donations from individuals and companies. The group provides after-school and summer programs, along with access to a mental health clinic that is staffed by three clinicians, two psychiatrists, a psychologist, seven master of social work interns and 20 non-clinical staff members.
“As an after-school and summer program, Children of Promise tends to fit with the busy schedules of working parents. For some of the kids, if they act out in school, their guidance counselors will call (staff at Promise) instead of their parents. That takes some of the stress off parents who can’t afford to take time away from work to fish their misbehaving child out of trouble,” Buzzfeed reported.
