Parenting behind bars: New program aims to connect families in Mecklenburg jail
Chablis Dandridge knows what it’s like to be in custody and to miss significant moments in his children’s lives because of it.
Now, he has dedicated his career to making sure other parents can connect with their children while behind bars.
Dandridge, director of operations for Life Connections — a Charlotte nonprofit — has formed a program with the organization and the Mecklenburg County Jail to offer eight weeks of parenting classes.
Dandridge, who is a longtime resident of Charlotte, became involved in the justice system when he was 14 years old. He left incarceration for the last time when he turned 41, after serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for drug trafficking.
When he went to prison for the last time, his sons were eight and 10 years old. When he was released, they were 21 and 23, respectively.
“I just think back to the times that I wasn’t able to be there for all of those firsts that they had — the first time that they maybe got picked on at school, or the first dance that they were going to, the first game that they won,” Dandridge said.
To have had an opportunity to connect with his sons and watch them grow up while having conversations with somebody guiding him would have been invaluable, Dandridge said.
Now, he is helping to guide those conversations with an inaugural cohort of nine parents within the Mecklenburg County Jail.
Strengthening Charlotte families
While there are only nine parents in the initial cohort for the program, there can be 12 to 16 family members, including children and their caretakers or co-parents, in a session any given day, Dandridge said.
To be eligible for the program, parents in custody must have a child that is between the ages of 7 and 17 and they must attend eight 90-minute virtual sessions twice a week, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
Each session focuses on a different topic using the nonprofit’s already established strengthening families program and fuses it with principles of restorative justice and communication, Dandridge said.
The curriculum is broken down into 10 lessons where the discussions center around topics such as communication, rules, responsibility and love, Dandridge said.
Each session is broken down into two different components, Dandridge said. Initially, the group meets on Zoom from jail or their home, and the sessions are split into two breakout rooms where children will meet with age-appropriate peers and a facilitator. The adults meet in a separate breakout room. The teens in another. Each group discusses the content of the day.
At the end of this breakout session, everyone comes together to discuss what they’ve learned.
These discussions are meant to help with any breakdowns in communication between the children’s caretakers and parents, but one of the most important parts of the program is that it allows families to see one another.
“From my own experience, it is priceless because it gives the family an opportunity to connect,” Dandridge said. “But not only to connect, (but) to have nurturing conversations led by caring and trained facilitators to bridge the disconnect.”
One of the incentives of the program is that at the end of it, families will be able to share a meal together. This is a huge motivator to those in jail because it provides them an opportunity to see their loved ones in person, hold their babies, and hug their children, Dandridge said.
The program began Feb. 28. And what Dandridge has seen is that each time the group comes together people become more relaxed and more connected.
“You can see the joy in children’s eyes when they get to have an opportunity to speak to their parents and tell them that they love them before bedtime, and share some of the things that’s been going on with them,” Dandridge said.
