(By Sheri Trusty, Seneca County Sheriff’s Office Public Relations Coordinator)

The Seneca County Jail operates with a mission to offer programs that can help inmates improve their lives and prevent recidivism, but those programs require funding.

At the end of October, one of the jail’s most powerful programs, its Nurturing Parenting Program, will end due to a lack of funding. The program impacts incarcerated parents and their children, as well as their children’s future.

The Nurturing Parenting Program is an accredited, evidence-based child abuse and prevention program for fathers and mothers that was instituted in the jail in February and is taught by certified instructor, Jami Hill.

Hill is a CARES Coordinator with Seneca County Family and Children First Council (FCFC). Seneca County Jail Case Manager Grace Morehart spent the last several months watching the program change lives.

“We have a lot of people come in with active Child Protective Services (CPS) cases. If a parent is in the system, their child is more likely to end up in the system,” Morehart said. “Jami teaches them how to be better parents, and it helps prevent their children from ending up here. Not having this class is a big loss, especially since it’s an accredited course.”

During the Oct. 1 classes, Hill taught about dealing with the stress of raising children. She explained coping mechanisms that can help during high-emotion moments, and she talked about the consequences of uncontrolled anger, like shaken baby syndrome. Hill teaches on a variety of topics, including child development, discipline techniques, and instilling self-worth in children and in themselves.

The program has changed family dynamics, helping inmates break generational behaviors and giving their children a better life now and a chance at a better future.

“I’ve learned how to understand my son a hundred times better,” one inmate said. “I learned how his brain develops and how he processes things, and I learned how to communicate with him better. It’s made me more patient with him.”

Another inmate said the class helped her understand herself better. By recognizing her unhealthy motivations and reactions, she’s making better choices as she communicates with her children, even now, while she’s in jail.

“I’ve learned how to process things better. It’s been a great class,” she said. “My relationship with my kids is better, and that wouldn’t have happened without this class.”

Hill worked for many years as a CPS investigator, where she could not help families until after a problem occurred. Through the parenting program, she can help prevent problems that can devastate families.

“I was working for a reactive agency, and what I love about this program is, it’s preventative,” Hill said. “We reached out to the jail to start this program because many of the kids we work with at FCFC deal with parental incarceration.”

FCFC Executive Director Sandy Hallett Berkey said the Nurturing Parenting Program is part of FCFC’s reentry program, which empowers inmates with resources to fuel post-incarceration success. It helps inmates recognize unhealthy behaviors and become strong parents who won’t find themselves contacted by the Department of Job and Family Services, which manages CPS.

“We give them new tools because sometimes they don’t even know the tools they have are wrong,” Hallett said. “We’re trying to keep them out of the doors of JFS.”

Hallett recently learned that grants she hoped would fund the program were denied, so she and Morehart are hoping to find a funding source to keep the program operating at the Seneca County Jail past October. Losing the program can affect generations.

“This program is helping women, men, and children, and it’s impacting the children’s futures,” Morehart said.

In the end, that impact reaches across Seneca County. Children on a path to follow their parents’ footsteps into jail have a new, healthier foundation for their lives. On Oct. 1, the women in the parenting class talked about their efforts to create better lives for their children by implementing the things they were learning.

The women don’t want jail to be a place that will one day find their children, also. They want their children to grow up and view the Seneca County Jail as the place that empowered their parents to break generational behaviors that set the whole family free.