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| The Reentry National Media Outreach Campaign acts as a catalyst to encourage solution-based reentry activities. Review this chronicle of public television and community events/actions to gain ideas on what may work in your arena. |
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GIRL SCOUTS BEYOND BARS (AZ, CA, DE, FL, KY, MD, NJ, OH)
Program Description The Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) program is a mother-child visiting program that allows children with incarcerated mothers to maintain contact throughout the term of incarceration. A partnership between local Girl Scout troops and correctional institutions, the program combines community Girl Scout meetings with meetings in prison facilities. In addition to fostering family ties, the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars program offers at-risk youth contact with adult mentors, through their contact with Girl Scout leaders. The GSBB program has expanded to several sites across the country. Maryland, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona were among the first states to implement the program. Maryland-GSBB, initiated in 1992, was the demonstration site for this program. The Girl Scouts program works with the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women and serves more than 30 girls and their mothers. The troop and their mothers meet biweekly at the facility for troop meetings. One Sunday per month, the troop meeting takes place in the community. The Maryland program does not include a parental training or reentry/transition component. Florida-GSBB has been initiated in two sites since its inception in 1994, Fort Lauderdale and Tallahassee . The Tallahassee site has two Girl Scout meetings per month in the facility, as well as four two-hour training sessions on parenting skills for the mothers. This site also has transitional services for the mothers upon their release. Fort Lauderdale also monitors the in-school progress of the youth participants. The Ohio-GSBB was the first site to form a partnership between a prison and transitional facility when it instituted the program in the Ohio Reformatory for Women and the Franklin Pre-Release Facility in 1994. Like the Maryland site, the Ohio-GSBB does not offer parenting or mental health services to its participants. The Arizona-GSBB is the first site to operate in a jail setting and also provides parenting instruction to the inmates. The GSBB program has served as a template for other collaborations between youth service organizations and correctional institutions. It has expanded beyond the initial four sites described above and now has over 20 programs in eight states. Additionally, the Girl Scouts have created the first partnership with a male prison facility in Ohio .
Program
Goals Outcomes The National Institute of Justice through the University of Baltimore has undertaken an evaluation of the Maryland-GSBB program. Additional Reading • Moses, Marilyn. 1995. Keeping Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters Together: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, NCJ 156217. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/156217.htm.
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