We're
a regional organization, serving young people throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area. This allows AVARY participants to remain in
the program, even if their home placement or living situation
changes.
The Need for
AVARY
The
California Research Bureau estimates there are approximately 106,000
children with incarcerated parents living in the greater San
Francisco Bay Area.
The CRB also
maintains that these children are up to five times more likely than
other children to experience incarceration sometime in their lives
because of:
1.
Inadequate quality of care due largely to poverty before, during and
after their parents' incarceration
2.
Lack of family support
3.
Enduring childhood trauma, which can affect a child's physical,
emotional, and cognitive well-being
History
The project is
the result of a collaboration between Chaplain Earl Smith of San
Quentin State Prison and our founder, Danny Rifkin.
In 1998, while
working together on a different project, Chaplain Smith remarked to
Rifkin that in all his work with inmates and their families, it was
the children who most often failed to get much needed attention.
