Curriculum

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) is a cognitive-behavioral parent management skills training program created for incarcerated parents through a six-year collaboration of scientists, policy makers, practitioners, and instructional designers. Both the information in the program and the way that information is presented were informed by knowledge derived from research and practice.

At the core of Parenting Inside Out is the Parent Management Training (PMT) curriculum, which appears on the “best practice” lists of: the American Psychological Assoc., the US Department of Health & Human Services, and the Office of Victims of Crime, the US Department of Justice. PMT includes communication, problem solving, monitoring, positive reinforcement and non-violent discipline techniques. Researchers built upon the PMT curriculum to make it effective within the context and restrictions of parents and families involved in the justice system. In addition to the scientists, practitioners and curriculum designers who contributed to PIO, inmates and their families were extensively interviewed to ensure the program addressed the real needs and issues they experience.

 

PIO is an outcomes-based program focused on helping parents promote healthy child adjustment, preventing child problem behavior, and interrupting the cycle of inter-generational criminality. In PIO parents develop both parenting and citizenship behaviors they can use in the rest-of-life, helping them guide their children toward positive, constructive adult lives.

PIO consists of classroom time involving learner-centered interactive skill building in Parent Management Training that is ultimately individualized to each parent’s family. Parenting Coaches facilitate role-play practice, work individually with parents to create plans for child visits, are available to offer immediate coaching and guidance at child-centered events, and provide inmates feedback and problem solving after their visits or phone calls with the child or the child’s caregiver. Participants focus on the completion of three major projects: 1) development of a family mission statement, 2) construction of a creative project that is a reflection of the inmate’s family to be given to the child at the PIO graduation ceremony, and 3) creation of a family action plan detailing how the inmate will apply parenting skills during incarceration and upon release.

One of the central activities in the prison currculum is the adoption of a bear. Adopting a bear for whom the parent is responsibile 24/7. Adopting a bear gives parents the opportunity to practice their parenting skills even though they are not with their children. One father describes it this way:

PIO is a way of navigating life that uses healthy, pro-social skills to interact with children, partners, co-parents, officials, friends and family. PIO values the uniqueness of each person and invites others into caring, respectful relationships. With PIO training, incarcerated parents can be good parents and positive role models in their children’s lives.

There are three versions of the PIO curriculum: Prison, Jail, and Community. Each was developed to meet the specific needs of people parenting in these very different situations and to accommodate differences among the teaching environments. The Prison and Community versions of the curriculum offer more hours of instruction than the Jail version. The Jail version is appropriate when the parent will be incarcerated for only a short time.