For families with loved ones in prison, incarceration takes its toll

Click here to read the spotlight on some of our programs: https://oaklandnorth.net/2018/12/13/20181204_incarceration_williamsrodas/

Are you interested in providing services to youth, families, and communities impacted by incarceration?

Community Works is now hiring in the following roles:

• Project WHAT! Program Manager

• NoVA Intensive Case Manager

We strongly encourage formerly incarcerated individuals, children of incarcerated parents, and those intimately affected by the criminal justice system to apply.

Hosted by our One Family program and led by facilitator Khaledah Wright, we are pleased to share news of our weekly parenting classes for justice-involved parents. More information can be found on the flyer below:

On the evening of Friday, June 9th, Community Works West hosted an opening night reception for The Welcome Home Project, a collection of stories and photographs of formerly incarcerated Alameda County residents who turned their lives around after years in prisons and jails. 

The Welcome Home Project is a collection of stories and photographs of formerly incarcerated Alameda County residents who turned their lives around after years in prisons and jails. Their stories are testimony to the power of resilience and determination in the face of the barriers that most formerly incarcerated individuals face.

Opening Night Reception:

Friday, June 9, 5:30-7:30 PM

John O’Lague Galleria In Hayward City Hall

777 B Street, Hayward CA

Project WHAT!, raises awareness about the effects of parental incarceration on children, with the long-term goal of improving services and policies that affect these children. Once a year we hold a fundraiser to raise money for our high school seniors who are transitioning into college. Read about past scholarship recipients here.

For prison inmates, being a parent is hard. You’re far away but you’re still here. And the visits and letters, those small points of contact, can become that much tougher for the distance.

Luna Garcia swipes through the photos on her phone until she finds it — the one of a young man with a slight mustache standing against a wall, his blue shirt neatly pressed, holding a chubby baby girl.

It’s the kind of picture someone might snap at a holiday dinner, a grainy image of a girl and her dad. But just out of the frame are armed guards and metal doors. It was visiting day at San Quentin State Prison.