A Reason and a Season... to Believe

On Friday, Children of Promise (CPNYC), a non-profit, after-school program for children who have one or two parents that are incarcerated, held its second annual Christmas party at . 

The parents mingled in the recently renovated gymnasium, while the children practiced Christmas carols and dance routines. The mood was festive and light and these children, who have at least one parent behind bars this Christmas, seemed happy and hopeful.

According to CPNYC, over 2 million children in the U.S. have an incarcerated parent. Bedford-Stuyvesant, along with Brownsville, East New York and neighborhoods in the South Bronx and Jamaica, Queens, are home to more children of incarcerated parents than anywhere else in New York City. CPNYC currently serves about fifty of them, ages six to seventeen, but they are able and willing to take on more.

President Sharon Content, a friendly, focused woman founded CPNYC in 2007, and launched its flagship program in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 2008. It is the nation's first after-school program to focus exclusively on children with incarcerated parents. 

"I'm really motivated and passionate about allowing young people to see their full potential," Content said. To that end, CPNYC provides a computer lab, a library, multiple classrooms, a therapeutic arts program and a mentorship program.

Before CPNYC, Content worked in the corporate world. "One day," she said, laughing, "I was in the ladies room, and I thought, 'I just don't want to do this.'" She pursued a master's degree in Urban Policy and soon after founded CPNYC. 

A small armada of caring adults—teachers, volunteers, therapists—provide the children educational and emotional support. Mentor Program Manager Alvaro Pinzon—known as 'Superman' to the children because of his Clark Kent-styled hair—laughed, "We all know our kids. We wear a lot of hats; we're interchangeable." 

For children with incarcerated parents, that support is crucial: "A lot of our young people are angry," Content admitted. "They're really pissed off. If you're eight years old, how are you going to express that?"

Although the organization is relatively new, Content wants to make Children of Promise a national program. "Our long-term goal is to affect policy that will impact the target population at large," Content said. 

CPNYC works alongside many organizations including the NYC Dept. of Mental Health. Anna Morgan-Mullane, CPNYC's Mental Health Director, emphasized how important individual and family therapy is. It's not easy.  Some children, struggling to express themselves, misbehave in school or at home. 

"They act out their feelings. They feel aggressive, fearful, anxious, hopeless. We get them to feel comfortable processing the loss of a parent," said Morgan-Mullane. 

Columbia University graduate student and Mental Health intern Kara Mauro has been providing individual therapy sessions under the guidance of Morgan-Mullane.

"In therapy," Mauro said, "it's those moments that are really intense and you think something's going wrong, but then you realize that it's part of the process."  Seeing the children merrily sing, stomp and dance their way through renditions of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer seemed evidence enough that those hard-won breakthroughs are worth it.

After the younger children finished with their performances, the teenagers took the stage.  Their teacher gave them the prompt, "I believe…" and they were asked to finish the sentence.  Some were funny, such as when one boy finished by saying, "I believe after this, I will get a standing ovation."  Others were serious: "I believe you should be who you are and not what your friends want you to be." 

Shamel Shider, 18, the last young man to read, perhaps best summarized the mood of everyone when he said, "I believe Children of Promise will change the world.  I believe in Mrs. Sharon Content."