Family First: How One Program Is Rebuilding System-Impacted Families

“Are you proud of your mother?” Colie Lavar Long, known as Shaka, asked 13-year-old Jade Muñez when he found her waiting at the Georgetown University Law Center. She had come straight from school and was waiting for her mother, Jessica Trejo—who, like Long, is formerly incarcerated—to finish her classes before they would head home together, part of their daily routine.

Muñez said yes, a heartwarming moment for both Long and Trejo, who are friends through their involvement in Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative. Trejo recalled that day: “When I came out, [Long] told me, ‘I think it’s awesome that your daughter comes here after school. Any other kid would be like, I'm out of here.’” This mother-daughter bond inspired Long to encourage this kind of family relationship through an initiative he named the Family First program.

Long founded the program through Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI), where he serves as a program associate. Long was incarcerated when he was 18 years old and sentenced to life without parole. He served 26 years in various federal prisons before he regained his freedom in 2022 through DC’s Second Look Amendment Act, which expanded on previous legislation and allowed incarcerated individuals who were under 25 years old at the time of their crime and had served at least 15 years to request a reduced sentence. He started taking Georgetown classes through PJI’s Prison Scholars program when in the DC Jail, earned his Georgetown degree, and began working with PJI just days after his release.

PJI hosts many successful prison education and reentry programs to assist currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, but Long noticed a key gap in their work. “All our programs are a response-based method to this problem called mass incarceration,” he said. “How come we can’t incorporate a more preventative method program? You know, targeting the youth and the children of justice-impacted families and working on [breaking] the cycle of intergenerational incarceration?”

Nearly half of incarcerated individuals held in state prisons have children under the age of 18, and about 1.25 million children have an incarcerated parent. Many of these children’s lives are uprooted as they are forced to move in with other family members. They often face health and cognitive challenges during their development, as well as stigma that can lead to isolation and make it difficult for them to enjoy a “normal” childhood. Prisons and jails also make it difficult for parents and children to maintain contact. Two-thirds of incarcerated parents never receive visits from their children, mainly due to strict visitation policies and being located far—often hundreds of miles—from home.

“Men and women coming back to society have a certain apprehension as far as reintegrating themselves back into their child’s lives. They already feel a sense of shame, a sense of abandonment,” Long said. “So when we create experiences where the child and the parent can laugh together…you see how the family structure starts to reintegrate itself. And that end itself helps me combat the system of having children repeat the patterns that they saw from their parents.”

The Family First Program aims to strengthen family bonds through programming and outings for system-impacted parents and their children to experience together. Long began gaining interest by reaching out to families who were alumni of other PJI initiatives, including Trejo.

A Los Angeles native, Trejo was incarcerated for five years in federal prison before she moved to DC in 2021 in search of a fresh start. She graduated from the MORCA-Georgetown Paralegal Program in 2023 and now works at the DC Office of Human Rights. She also regained custody of Muñez after not having seen her for seven years, and soon after, her niece, Joellie. “I was learning to be a mother again all over,” she shared.

Trejo and Muñez have participated in the program since its first event, a two-hour financial literacy workshop for parents and children, which allowed them to learn and grow together. Other events since include trips to Legoland and Six Flags, kayaking on the Potomac River, and a holiday lunch. Up to 20 families usually participate, depending on the event, and children range from three years old to teenagers.

“The whole thing is how do we rebuild family bonds… by creating these experiences that were robbed due to the parents’ incarceration?” Long said. “As far as the actual outcome of the program, it’s beautiful.”

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Trejo said. “You know, to be able to create those memories through a program that's catered to returning citizens and their children.” She was thrilled that Nuñez loved the kayaking trip so much that she asked Trejo if they could do it again, just the two of them.

“I think Jessica and Jade really played a big part for me, just seeing that and witnessing that,” Long said. “Like, damn, this is something that’s needed.”

“I think that’s a critical missing aspect of crime prevention that people really don’t invest in,” he shared. “It’s easy to respond to something versus to actively prevent something from happening.”

One of the biggest challenges Long faces is organizing the events, given that all the participants—himself included—are still rebuilding their lives post-incarceration. Funding also always poses a challenge, and he hopes to have the means to fund more trips for more participants in the future.

What he is most hopeful for, however, is that Family First can serve as a model and inspire others to start similar initiatives. “I would appreciate that more than just somebody giving me money to continue running our program,” he said. “I’d love to see other people latch onto the idea and replicate it to a greater scale than I can do.”

“It gives a sense of pride for the child, you know, the child understands that yesterday, they may be able to remember time and their mom and dad wasn’t here, but it is also witnessing their mom and dad making strides to build a better life for the both of them.”

Alexis Tamm is a student at Georgetown University. An avid writer and aspiring journalist, she is passionate about solutions-focused reporting and driving change through storytelling.

Alexis was a cohort member in Common Ground USA's Journalism program, where Hugo Balta served as an instructor. Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.

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