A Spirit of Giving
The data is sobering. The number of children who have an incarcerated parent is growing. Many of these parents and children lack access to the support and community needed to maintain healthy family relationships. Others lack the opportunity to meet the physical needs of their children.
At Palmer Home, one of our main areas of focus is on serving incarcerated women and their children. Some of the support and reentry services that our case workers provide for moms include:
- Assistance with obtaining housing and employment
- Providing transportation
- Securing resources like clothing, food, home goods, baby items and supplies
- Providing emotional support and stable relationships
Without our help, many of these children would lack opportunities, social support, stability, a safe and loving environment. Statistics show that children who lack early support for these necessary resources have lower rates of graduation, lower rates of college attendance, higher rates of teen pregnancy, and lower rates of job retention. We meet these families and children where they are, in the early stages of a child’s life, in order to provide the necessary support to help them grow, thrive, and accomplish their fullest potential.
In the last year alone, we’ve served 15 incarcerated mothers through family care, 250 children through family and foster care in multiple states, and been witness to 26 reunifications with biological families. We’ve also seen 3 high school graduations, 5 college graduations, 3 young adults join the military, and 10 young adults go off to college.
We are also praising God for the news that children are once again allowed to visit their incarcerated parents, a huge blessing for the moms we serve and their children, who’d only been able to communicate via letters, pictures, and phone calls since the beginning of the pandemic. Please keep them in your prayers as they prepare to see each other face-to-face for the first time in 18 months.
This Giving Tuesday, we’re asking for the generous support of Tennesseans seeking to make a difference in the lives of young mothers and their children. Will you support our mission?
