Lonnie Lively, an inmate at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon, has good news for her eight-year-old daughter, Audrey Detrick. "Guess what?" asks Lively, fiddling with a bow on her daughter's shirt. "I just got three months good time, so I'm getting out June 5th. Count them: March. April. May. We're down to four months."

It's the Saturday before Valentine's Day 2005, and Audrey and Lively are decorating paper hearts inside the prison's minimum security facility cafeteria. About twenty other mothers and daughters are also enjoying a precious two hours of family time—a bi-weekly event coordinated by a program called Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB). Launched in 1992 as a pilot project by the National Institutes of Justice and the Girl Scouts of America, GSBB now operates in 23 states and serves over 800 children.

Improving the Odds for Mothers & Daughters

"The best way to ensure kids don't have bad outcomes is to strengthen the parent and parent-child relationship," says Arlene Lee, director of the Federal Resource Center for Children of Prisoners, a partnership between the Department of Justice and the Child Welfare League of America. Strengthening the mother-child bond also reduces recidivism rates for incarcerated women. "It's the key reduction," she says.

GSBB, which serves women in minimum- and medium-security correctional facilities, has several unique features. Unlike traditional prison visitation, where movement and physical contact are limited, GSBB encourages mothers and daughters to bond physically and emotionally over crafts, singing and other activities. The moms also attend bi-weekly parenting classes and planning sessions to organize activities for their children. Meanwhile, the girls participate in monthly troop activities ranging from community service projects to selling Girl Scout cookies.

GSBB provides mothers with leadership and parenting opportunities and girls with peer support and adult role modeling, says Lee. "It is almost a perfectly designed program."

"It's Kept Me Sane"

Lively, who is 38 and is serving two years for identity theft and delivery of a controlled substance, agrees. "Being able to see my daughter has kept me going," she says. "It's kept me sane." GSBB also keeps her from "doing stupid stuff," said Lively, explaining that kitchen duties make her a frequent target for contraband requests. "People ask me: will you bring me cinnamon, other stuff. I say no, it's not worth it."

Behavior demerits disqualify inmates from participating in the program.

A second grader at Mill Park Elementary in Portland, Audrey lives with her great aunt, whom she calls "Sissy." Her father is in federal prison. Her stepfather, from whom Lively has since separated, has served time for robbery. Lively herself has struggled with substance abuse—meth was her drug of choice—for over ten years.

"I tell Audrey, "Mom's made mistakes and I have to pay the consequences,'" says Lively, who is enrolled in computer classes and hopes to land a technical support position upon release. "I know when I get out of here, I need to be 100 percent attending to my daughter," she says. "I don't have room for error."

On this Saturday morning, Audrey makes her mom a Valentine—"I love you" written on blue construction paper—then tackles "Uniquely Me," a self-esteem workbook provided by GSBB. As she fills in the blanks, Audrey tells her mom about a girl who was mean to a school substitute the week before and how her music class is learning to play drums. "I want to play the flute," she says. "That's what I played as a kid," responds Lively. Audrey beams—her first smile of the day.

A Growing Population

According to the Federal Resource Center for Children of Prisoners, at the end of 2002, 96,099 women were incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities, an increase of almost 2% over 2001. Approximately 75% of these women are mothers, two thirds of whom have children under 18. Fifty-four percent of all women housed in state prison facilities report having no visitation at all from their children.

Most children who visit their parents in prison do so with a relative or through informal networks such as churches. One of the only formal programs of its kind, Girl Scouts Beyond Bars is having a small but significant impact on the country's growing female prison population. Over half of the mothers in Oregon's Columbia River GSBB reported not having any visitation from their daughters until joining the program. For all of the participants, GSBB increased visitation by 76 percent.

The program's biggest challenge is finding volunteers to transport the girls to and from the prison, says Susan Hayes, Columbia River GSBB program manager. "I have 8-10 applications sitting on my desk that I haven't looked at yet because I don't have people to pick them up," she said. Other stumbling blocks include relatives who don't want the girls to visit their moms in prison and overburdened caregivers, many of whom are grandparents, who don't have the time or energy to fill out the application.

Bonding Over Cotton Balls & Glue

Delia Philpot, who is serving two years at Coffee Creek for identity theft and drug possession, says her ex-husband waited three months before allowing their 10-year-old daughter Marque to visit. "The first thing I saw was the barbed wire," said Marque, a shy, dark-haired fifth grader who wrote a poem about her mom that won an award in the NW Prison Project's writing contest. "That made me nervous." Her mom finishes the thought. "But we're not so terrible. We're just women who made bad choices.

Philpot and Marque spend long moments hugging each other fiercely, unable to speak while they wipe away tears. "Girl Scouts takes me out of being in prison," said Philpot. "The regular visits let me be a mother."

Working together on crafts projects helps Philpot get conversations going with her daughter, she said. Last Christmas, she and Marque constructed a Santa Claus with ribbons and fuzz balls that was used as the centerpiece for the prison Christmas party.

Regular Troopers

Outside the prison, the GSBB troop isn't so different from regular Girl Scout troops, says Sarah Johnson, a former GSBB program specialist. The girls work on crafts, culture and educational projects, and go on camping trips and other recreational outings. The only distinguishing feature, Johnson says, is GSBB encompasses a wider age range, with girls aged five to 17 in the same troop. "The girls like to hang out together," she explains. "They're all in the same boat. They all have moms who are in prison."

At the Girl Scout Office in Salem, Oregon, where the girls have gathered after a visit to Coffee Creek, Marque and other members of the GSBB troop pack Girl Scout cookies for their moms, discuss new badges earned from a global citizenship workbook, and play Red Light - Green Light in the parking lot. More relaxed than she was inside Coffee Creek, Marque talks about how much she likes to draw and says she wants to be a clothes designer when she grows up. What does she like best about Girl Scouts? "It's fun and cool," Marque responds, giggling with several other girls.

Stronger Bonds, Stronger Girls

Social science researchers have only been studying the children of prisoners for about ten years, said Lee. The small but growing body of research is beginning to validate the anecdotal benefits of GSBB. A recent study of a local program conducted by the University of Texas at Austin found improvements in both the girls' attitudes toward their mothers and the girls" self-esteem.

"Most mothers experience arrest and incarceration as a crisis that forces them to confront their relationship with their children," said Lee. GSBB, she says, is the "most promising model" to date when it comes to exploiting that opportunity to build stronger families and citizens.

Back at Coffee Creek, Audrey and her mother discuss what they are going to do after Lively is released. "Were going to Disneyland, watch cartoons, eat ice cream and tickle a lot," says Lively. Audrey is more pragmatic. "My mom's going to get a job," she says.

Linda Baker is a journalist based in Portland, Oregon.

Resources:

• Learn more about Girls Scouts of the USA and the GSBB program.
• The Messages Project, profiled in Connect for Kids in March 2005, offers a different model for keeping kids connected to an incarcerated parent.