McNeil Island Corrections Center Family and Fatherhood Program

The McNeil Island Corrections Center (MICC) in Washington State has developed a comprehensive family and fatherhood program for incarcerated men and their families. The program has several components, including regular sessions on family responsibility, father-child activities, and Marriage Encounter weekend workshops, designed to strengthen relationships and improve communication between couples. Case managers direct prisoners to family and fatherhood programs based on their specific needs, while Family Advocate Volunteers represent the issues of offenders' families within the prison. The MICC Advisory Council, a group made up of local community stakeholders, has founded Families Matter, a nonprofit organization that develops community partnerships to provide resources and training to prisoners at MICC. MICC's family and fatherhood program receives in-kind resources and assistance from the National Fatherhood Initiative and from trained volunteer mentors.

The goal of this program is to promote positive family relationships, help incarcerated fathers learn skills to be active and involved fathers, encourage incarcerated fathers to
provide financial support for their children, facilitate programs for offender families through community partnerships, and provide constructive opportunities for children to participate in special activities with their incarcerated father.

-Programs and access to services for offender families (e.g. child strollers for visiting, women's conference for offender families, advocacy, etc.) have been increased by 150%.
-Child focused literacy programs at MICC (e.g. Books on the Boat, Read to Me Daddy, Help with Homework, etc.) have increased by over 300%.
-Serious infractions have decreased for participating offenders. During the first year, serious infractions were reduced by 44%, and during the second year serious infractions were reduced by an additional 32%.