Grant to help children of prisoners: Federal money for faith-based initiatives to fund Del. and N.J. program for 3 years

A top official of the federal Health and Human Services Department visited Delaware on Monday to present the first installment of a $2.1 million grant for mentoring children whose parents are incarcerated.

Robert J. Polito, director of the Center for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, said the three-year grant is the fifth-largest from the $45.6 million the federal government is providing for such programs nationwide.

At a news conference at the Police Athletic League Center on North Market Street in Wilmington, he and local leaders emphasized the grant's possible benefit in breaking the cycle of despair and hopelessness that leads children of imprisoned parents into lives of crime.

"Seven out of 10 of them, the data show us, they follow in mom and dad's footsteps," Polito said.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said he and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., all supported the grant because "it is imperative" to help inmates' children - and ultimately will save taxpayers the high cost of their incarceration later.

The grant is expected to serve about 600 children over three years, said Theophilus R. Nix Jr., vice president of community and public relations for the Nonprofit Development Institute Inc. in Wilmington, which applied for the grant.

Under an umbrella group called Professional Counseling Resources Inc., the grant is to provide volunteer mentors through the nonprofit Churches Take a Corner Inc. of Wilmington and its Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program, he told about 60 people at the gathering.

The Rev. Tyrone Johnson, founding director and chief executive officer of Churches Take a Corner Inc., praised the program's possible impact in Wilmington, where 9,000 children have at least one parent in prison and 2,500 city youths are on probation.

"We need God to bless this," he said.

Delaware Corrections Commissioner Stanley Taylor said he hopes the grant will help break the cycle he has seen of incarceration in the state. In 29 years in corrections, Taylor said, he has seen three generations of some families in Delaware's prisons.

With the help of unpaid mentors, the program will use the grant money to pay for full-time staff to develop the effort, mentor training, stipends for churches' mentor coordinators, insurance, materials and other costs, Nix and his brother, Institute President Sheldon D. Nix said.

Although the news conference focused on the grant's use in Delaware, Sheldon Nix said in an interview afterward that it also covers six counties in New Jersey.

Ultimately, he said, he expects about a third of the grant to stay in Delaware, with a goal of serving about 200 children here.