Grad students help prisoner dads reconnect

Graduate students at the Department of Communication and Journalism are collaborating with Fathers Building Futures, an Albuquerque business, to help felons integrate into their families after incarcerations.

Tema Milstein, associate professor at the Department of Communication and Journalism, said the students from a PhD professional seminar class are collaborating with PB&J, a nonprofit organization working for the rights of children, and specifically with Fathers Building Futures.

This unit of the class in which we are collaborating is focused on using research and teaching to help bring about positive change, Milstein said. We really wanted to engage our graduate students, who are going to be future professors, in understanding how they can bring about positive change in their work.

Fathers Building Futures is an initiative of PB&J Family Services that provides hands-on service and skill-oriented training to previously incarcerated people in auto detailing, mobile power washing and customized woodworking, according to the PB&J website.

Fathers Building Futures aims to connect formerly incarcerated fathers with their professional and civic promises while providing affordable, meaningful and useful services to the community, a PB&J press release states. In the process, child recidivism is cut by close to 50 percent, and children benefit from a father who is not role modeling behind bars.

Fathers Building Futures is working to protect the futures of children as well as their parents, said Dean Maayan, director of PB&J Family Services Development & Strategic Initiatives.

In the majority of cases fathers are returning to jails not because they committed a new crime, but because they failed to secure housing or employment which translates to their Probation Officer as a violation of their parole plan, Maayan said. Creating a business to employ them as they leave prison was our solution to the tremendous problems these fathers face: not being able to get hired despite their talent and desire to work.

She said that many Fathers Building Futures graduates have found employment in other organizations.

This workforce development project of PB&J Family Services has been funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Family Assistance, through its Responsible Fatherhood community-based pilot project grant.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, children of prisoners are 10 times more likely to partake in criminal behavior than children with non-incarcerated parents.

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Grad students help prisoner dads reconnect