Councilmember Brewer questions ACS connection with incarcerated parents at Rikers

Okay, Councilmember Brewer.

Thank you.

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 crew.

My question is, people coming out of Rikers or coming out from upstate, women in particular, are you in touch with the 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 until 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 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, 400 or 500 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, and I'll pass it.

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 incarcerated throughout the state or even in the country to facilitate visits.

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

And when 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 make a decision about safe and timely reunification.

To your question about a formal agreement or partnership, we don't have that now, but we can definitely take that and 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 the issues.

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?

Yeah.

Okay, number two would be...

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

So yes, I think so.

It's a really important population and they're going to end up in recidivism if that issue...

It's not addressed, in my opinion.

Well, and I'll remove her getting in trouble and say yes, we'll absolutely follow up, and I look forward to meeting the commissioner.