Resources for Prisoners and Families
Families and friends of inmates or former inmates can be helped by resources that are available that deal with the issues associated with incarceration. How can I help a person who is in jail or prison? How can our family cope with our loved one being incarcerated? What should we do when someone is released from jail or prison?
The resources below help to answer these questions and to provide wisdom and guidance during and after incarceration. We thank Prison Fellowship Ministries for sharing these resources with us. Our prayer for you is that through the transforming power of God, your family and your incarcerated loved one will experience the freedom found in Christ Jesus.
Resources for Reentry
Two-thirds of released prisoners will be arrested again within three years. These resources will help you know what to expect when a friend or family member returns to society, and how you can help maximize their chances for success.
Reentry
- Can You Be Trusted?
In discipleship ministry—whether you are a mentor, Bible study leader, support group facilitator, etc.—building trust is critical for greatest impact. - How To Create a Reentry Plan
This brochure is available from the National Fatherhood Initiative. The brochure covers how to plan for a successful reentry – with tips for taking care of finances, getting employment, and more. (Brochures are $0.31 each) - Keeping Ex-Offenders Free!
Keeping Ex-Offenders Free is a much read guide for anyone working with a man or woman coming out of prison. Many ministries use it as a training text. The practical guides to helping ex-offenders become stable are greatly appreciated. - Shortimer: Preparing for Release
Advice on housing, employment, drug counseling and more. - When Prisoners Return
“When Prisoners Return” identifies the need for individuals and churches to be involved as prisoners return to society; this book also equips individuals and churches with the information they need to effectively assist former prisoners. - Women Rising – How Canadian Women are Breaking Free From Criminal Pasts and Building a Better Future
This eye-opening and inspiring book shows how one organization, Prison Fellowship Canada, is helping women prisoners in particular to keep their families together while they are incarcerated and to build better lives once they’re out.
Resources for Families & Friends
The incarceration of a loved one can be overwhelming. Where do you turn for help? These resources will help you know what to expect after someone you care about has been arrested, and how to cope before, during, and after their sentence.
Children
- Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration (Sesame Street toolkit) (NEW)
The incarceration of a loved one can be very overwhelming for both children and caregivers. It can bring about big changes and transitions. In simple everyday ways, you can comfort your child and guide her through these tough moments. With your love and support she can get through anything that comes her way. Here are some tools to help you with the changes your child is going through. - Mama Loves Me from Away
“Mama Loves Me from Away” is about a young girl who shares a special connection with her incarcerated mother through storytelling. - My Daddy is in Jail
“My Daddy is in Jail” includes a read-aloud story, discussion guide, caregiver suggestions and optional small group counseling activities. This resource can be used one-on-one or in a group setting. - Sesame Street in Communities: Incareration (YouTube) (NEW)
Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration, a bilingual (English/Spanish) multimedia initiative, provides much-needed resources to support and comfort young children throughout their parents’ incarceration. - Sesame Street: Incarceration App for Android (NEW)
The Sesame Street: Incarceration app provides parents and caregivers with tools to help children ages 3-8 cope with the many transitions related to a parent’s incarceration. - Sesame Street: Incarceration App for iPhone/iPad (NEW)
The Sesame Street: Incarceration app provides parents and caregivers with tools to help children ages 3-8 cope with the many transitions related to a parent’s incarceration. - The Invisible String
“The Invisible String” is a very simple approach to overcoming the fear of loneliness or separation with an imaginative flair that young children can easily identify with and remember. - Visiting Day
“Visiting Day” is about a little girl and her grandmother who take a long bus ride to visit her father who is in prison. - When a Parent Goes to Jail
“When a Parent Goes to Jail” is a resource to help children of incarcerated parents cope with the traumas they face — physical, emotional, and social stigmas and feelings of guilt, anger, fear and shame — and guide them in making wiser life choices.
Family and Friends
- ARRESTED What to Do When Your Loved One’s in Jail
Arrested is the only guide to supporting family members facing criminal charges. It explains how to make decisions that are in the best interests of the entire family—not just the defendant—and provides checklists of what things to do, and in what order. Form letters called “jail mail” are included to help readers quickly send important information to inmates. - Family Arrested: How to Survive the Incarceration of a Loved One
The author’s life was devastated when her husband was arrested for a federal tax crime and given a fifteen-year sentence. During the six years he served, she learned about the prison system, which she tells about in this book. Edenfield reads the painful events of those years in a factual way, distancing herself from the emotional pain of being left to raise four young children on little income. This stoicism requires listeners to engage their imaginations to envision what her life must have been like. - Family Arrested: How to Survive the Incarceration of a Loved One
The author shares her journey of survival after her husband was arrested and incarcerated in Federal Prison. The book offers helpful suggestions to cope with a loved one’s incarceration including practical information that will help family members understand the criminal justice system. - Get Outta My Face!
Get Outta My Face! is written for Christian parents, teachers, and youth workers to help them reach angry, unmotivated and disinterested teens with biblical counsel. - Help! My Loved One Is In Jail. Now What Do I Do?
Written by a former inmate, this practical booklet is for those who are experiencing the incarceration of a loved one. It walks individuals and families through the typical experience associated with this traumatic event. Many family members and friends are often unfamiliar with the turbulent sea into which they suddenly find themselves plunged–and panic can quickly follow. This booklet serves as a guide to highlight the various emotional responses, legal proceedings and actions needed for thoughtful consideration as one embarks upon this painful journey. - HELP! My Loved One is in Prison
Practical steps to take if your friend or loved one is currently or formerly incarcerated. Oftentimes the person searching for help feels just as lost as the person inside the walls. This manual addresses that experience. This book is for anyone who is affected by the imprisonment, past or present, of a loved one and wants to do something to help. - Learning to Sing in a Strange Land
The author describes the experience of incarceration both from the family’s perspective and that of the inmate. His story of his daughter’s incarceration is deeply personal but also very informative and inspirational. - Sentenced, Now What?
This booklet is designed to help individuals and families with the second phase of the incarceration journey–sentencing and what follows.
Resources for Those Behind Bars
Need something to encourage an incarcerated loved one? Look here for devotionals, prisoner Bibles, family connection guides, and Christian lifestyle guides specifically tailored to those doing time.
Inspirational
- Author Overcame Poverty, Fatherlessness
Best-selling Christian writer Philip Yancey, author of The Jesus I Never Knew and Disappointment with God, recently spoke at an international gathering of prison ministers. He took time out with Inside Journal to share his thoughts about prison, finding God and growing up without a dad. - Changed Lives
“Changed Lives” by Annie Goebel has seven compelling stories of the transformational journey from incarceration to freedom! Written for inmate discipleship guidance, while inside, preparing for release and transition into community. Also, gives in-depth insight to volunteers and family members of incarcerated women. - Free on the Inside
A Bible written specifically for prisoners. It is available in English (regular print and Large print) and Spanish.
Marriage/Family
- Let’s Face It
It’s amazing how feelings show unmistakably on the faces of young children. They don’t mask what’s on their minds. Their facial expressions clearly reflect what’s going on in their hearts. That’s not the case for most men. Masking emotions doesn’t help build healthy relationships—especially with our children. And when our facial expressions keep people out of our lives, we’ve got a problem. - Staying Involved with Your Children While Incarcerated
This booklet is available from the National Fatherhood Initiative. It provides practical advice inmate fathers can use to connect to their families. (Brochures are $0.31 each) - Totally Fun Tests: For Dads and Children
A cool tool to help you know your kids better. - Totally Fun Tests: For Dads and Teens
A cool tool to help you know your kids better. - Totally Fun Tests: For Moms and Children
A cool tool to help you know your kids better. - Totally Fun Tests: For Moms and Teens
A cool tool to help you know your kids better. - Visiting Room Sabotage
When it comes to prison visitation, there is something I call “visiting room sabotage.” It’s that thing that happens when you were hoping for a good visit and it suddenly goes south. It’s when, by the close of the event, both parties wind up hurt and angry and later feel guilty for sabotaging their own visit.
Money
- Getting the Benefits You Earned as a Veteran
Of the 23 million veterans in the United States today, an estimated 140,000 are in prison or jail. And many veterans—imprisoned or not—are unaware of the help available to them. Did you know that in recent years, Congress has expanded many benefits for veterans, including disability, pensions, and health care, while easing eligibility requirements? - Smart Ways to Handle Your Money
Managing family finances, living without credit, and other financial matter.
Prison Survival
- Anger: It’s All in How You Think
Confronting anger and changing destructive thought patterns. - Can Sardines Be Lonely?
Dealing with loneliness and learning how to reach out to other prisoners. - Piecing Together a College Education
Picking a college, earning credits, and how to afford higher education while in prison. - Prison Survival Guide
How to survive—and even thrive—physically, mentally, and spiritually while inside. - Solving the Puzzle of Depression
Learn more about depression and how you can find comfort in dark times.
Sexuality
- Coming Back from the Unspeakable Crime
There is hope for those who have committed a sex crime. - Life of Joseph
Dealing with a tragic family background, overcoming temptation and more. - Sex Matters
Understanding the battle with sex. Adopted from Waylon Ward’s Sex Matters: Men Winning the Battle. - Surviving a Secret Shame
Sexual abuse is an uncomfortable topic, but it happens all too often – affecting girls, boys, women and men alike. Maybe you know this firsthand. Prison is a tough environment in which to deal with the fallout of sexual abuse, but the principles of healing are the same on the inside as they have been for me on the outside.
Spiritual
- Anger: Ally or Enemy?
A former inmate said anger is the only acceptable emotion in prison. There are many reasons to be angry behind bars: loss of freedom, disrespect from fellow inmates, and so-called friends and family that have vanished. In contrast, what the Bible says about anger seems strange. Ephesians 4:31 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger … be put away from you, along with all malice.” - Is Failure Final?
The man who suffered betrayal, mockery and death was Jesus Christ. Even before He created the world, it was God’s plan for His Son, Jesus, to come to earth, live as a man—experiencing all the pain, emotions, and temptations that we do—and then die a horrible death. But why would God send His own Son to suffer and die? How could this apparently total failure be part of the plan? - Islam and Christianity
The similarities and crucial differences between Islam and Christianity. Excerpted from Timothy George’s Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammed? - Prisoners in the Bible
Zach Sewell’s book gives an in-depth look at how deeply God loves the prisoner. Each story is different, every life unique; examples of how God’s grace shines into even the darkest prison. Prisoners in the Bible reminds us that through the power of Jesus Christ, there is always hope, and every life can be changed!”- Annie Goebel, president, Daughters of Destiny.
