L.A. RETHINKS PRISON FAMILIES BOARD TO DISCUSS PROGRAM TO REUNITE KIDS, INCARCERATED PARENTS.

Byline: SUE DOYLE Staff Writer

Children in foster care with parents in prison will come under review this week by county officials who will consider developing a program to reunite the families when Mom's or Dad's sentence is over.

Often these relationships become strained and severed, as families are separated in the public systems and in the hundreds of miles that can separate the prison walls and foster homes.

On Tuesday the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will discuss a Stockton-based program used by the San Francisco Department of Human Services that helps these families stay connected. They will consider creating a similar program for Los Angeles County to apply in cases where courts support the family's relationship.

``You have a lot of nonviolent offenders in prison,'' said Nick Ippolito, children's deputy for Supervisor Don Knabe. ``This focuses on communication with parents in prison where reunification is appropriate.''

Ippolito said that the program falls in line with efforts to keep kids out of the foster care system, establish permanency in their lives and give them a home base to lean on.

Without family around, kids who remain in foster care age out of the system at 18 and stake out in the world on their own. Although there are children who make the transition, find jobs and apartments on their own, about one-third of foster youths will become homeless. One in five will be in prison within two years of leaving the foster care system, according to Children's Law Center of Los Angeles.

About five years ago, the San Francisco Department of Human Services began its contract with Friends Outside, a 50-year-old organization that serves as a bridge between incarcerated parents and their children.

Friends Outside connects with prisoners and works with child-welfare workers, who then work with the foster youths, said Gretchen Newby, executive director.

Contracted case workers go to the prisons, meet with the parents and talk to them about the possibility of reunification after release, she said.

Often there are gaps to fill.

In some cases, incarcerated parents don't know how to reach their children, who have been shuffled from home to home in the foster care system. Other times, they're afraid that the kids don't want them in their lives.

But Newby said the efforts can help children get out of the foster care system, where the prognosis for success is not good. That changes when they stay with family.

``It makes sense to take that extra step and find a relationship with that mom or dad in prison,'' she said. ``We may see this person as a convicted felon, but to a child, it's still Mom or Dad.''

At the same time, foster care children are also often at a loss for ways to stay in touch with their incarcerated parents, said Nell Bernstein, Berkeley-based author of the 2005 ``All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated.''

Bernstein sees the many miles that often fall between children and their parents behind bars as a significant challenge that leads to the first of communication breakdowns.

Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, for example, is a far drive from Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Arranging rides to visit mothers there can work if the child is staying with a relative who has an incentive to visit the prisoner. But there's less incentive for a foster parent to drive that distance, she said.

Plus phone calls from prison are made collect, and foster care parents don't have to accept them -- another relationship hinderance, she said.

At the same time, Bernstein found that when courts look to terminate parental rights, one of the features they consider is how contact was maintained between the incarcerated parent and child.

``It works against them to not call or visit,'' she said.

sue.doyle(at)dailynews.com

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