Welcome to the Families with Incarcerated Parents Project
The Families with Incarcerated Parents Project grew out of a 1998 partnership between the UNH Department of Human Development and Family Studies, UNH's Cooperative Extension, and the New Hampshire Department of Corrections. One of the accomplishments of the partnership was the creation of a family resource center in the NH prison facilities. Today there are Family Connections Centers (FCCs) in all of the state prisons, and the centers are managed by the the New Hampshire Department of Corrections in consultation with the Department of Human Development and Family Studies.
The mission of the Family Connections Center is to strengthen the connection between incarcerated parents and their families while facilitating ties to their community through education and support.
Over the past 12 years, the FCCs' offerings have included parenting education classes, weekly parenting support groups, one‐on‐one virtual/video visits between incarcerated mothers or fathers and their children, life skills seminars, relationship and communications course for couples, and much more.
The Family Corrections Center is effective. The most recent research shows the recidivism rate for offenders who completed the FCC parenting program during the time they were incarcerated prior to release in FY2005 was 39.5%, compared to the overall recidivism rate of 49.6% for offenders from the same time period who did not participate in the program.
