Arizona’s Project

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Arizona’s Project
In 2006, the State of Arizona’s Bill of Rights Project was chosen as one of 14 partnerships in the U.S. to identify strategies and initiatives to improve conditions for children of prisoners. The Arizona Bill of Rights Project for Incarcerated Children obtained support and technical assistance from Senior Justice Fellow Dee Ann Newell of the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute and the Washington, D.C. based Family Corrections Network.

The Project selected three of the eight rights identified in the Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights by San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Project (www.sfcipp.org). These rights are:

  1. To be kept safe and informed at the time of their parent’s arrest.
  2. To be cared for in their parent’s absence.
  3. To support in coping with their parent’s incarceration.

The focus was on reducing traumas associated with parental arrest, addressing existing delays in behavioral health services, providing support for caregivers and promoting awareness of the needs of this largely invisible, yet highly vulnerable population of children.