Council Member Brewer Questions Support for Children of Incarcerated Parents

Okay, Councilmember Brewer?

Thank you.

Um I have a question about Rikers.

I go to Rikers a lot, and I have been a foster parent, and then now I have the migrant kids in my house, so I'm familiar with the with the crew.

My question is um people coming out of Rikers or coming out from upstate women in particular.

Are you in touch with Department of Correction?

Because we all know that maybe the kids are in foster care, they really want to go back with their parents, they can't go back till they have a place to live, blah blah blah.

I worry about that population because that population I know well you get mental health issues when your parents are in incarcerated.

So do you have that kind of connection at all, or is that something that you're focused on?

Either with Fortune Society correction or anybody else.

I just want to make sure we're clear.

Are you asking about children in foster care whose parents are incarcerated?

Correct.

And I'm also concerned, it's not a big population.

I don't know, four or five hundred women at Rikers, but it is a population where young people can be damaged mentally if they don't get support.

That's important to us now, Patrick.

So thank you for your question.

ACS has a team, it's called CHIP, Children of Incarcerated Parents.

And we work very closely with the foster care providers to ensure while children are in care and their parents are are incarcerated throughout the state or even in the country to facilitate visits.

And that team also, you know, works closely with agencies because case planning should continue.

And when fit when you know parents are released and they're moving back into the area, if the goal remains reunification, there's an expectation that the agencies are supporting those families to assess and you know make a decision about safe and timely reunification.

To your question about like a formal like agreement or um partnership, we don't have that at now, but we can definitely take that and you know.

I would like to see, I think look at that.

Obviously, the new DOC commissioner is phenomenal, known him for 40 years.

And the fact of the matter is I think he would be interested in it.

We're trying to reduce the population.

This would be one way to do it.

You know, that you know the issues.

I I don't know if there's funding allocated to it.

I don't know what the numbers are, but I'd love to see some data as to how many women could be reunited.

You can know where this is going so that the families are in better shape, the women are in better shape, and they get support.

Is that something that you could get back to us on?

Yes.

Okay.

Number two would be trouble.

I get in trouble when I say I'll take look into that.

So, yes, I think so.

It's a really important population, and they're gonna end up in recidivism if that issue is not addressed, in my opinion.