Personal Leadership Plan
Carla Linder
HSM/230
January 20, 2015
Cory Jones
Personal Leadership Plan The area of human services I would most like to work into is helping people who have a loved one or family member who is incarcerated. I know that during this educational journey I have been able to view some of the statistics regarding children with an incarcerated parent and the numbers are staggering. Not only are the individuals affected by their bad decisions but their families are also affected and diversely affected. According to the US Department of Justice statistics, “More than 1.7 million children currently have a parent incarcerated in prison and millions more have a parent in jail.” The United States has the highest number of individuals incarcerated in the world and more than half have a child or children under the age of 18. I understand that this will be a very difficult field and I know that there may be times when there is not the amount of funding necessary to help these children and their families. I know that there may be times when the ethical thing to do is not supported within the realm of what an organization can help these families with. Morally, I feel that these children may be the forgotten sector of society, however they are our future and theirs future could look really bleak to them with the entire stigma associated with their situations. Again, morally, we all have a responsibility, in human service organizations, to assist people in need, to provide solutions for families struggling in society, and to ensure that society and the values and ethical of our society are upheld. I think there needs to be a liaison between the justice system and the families of people incarcerated. There are many programs to assist the inmate and the people administrating these programs have the inmate’s best interests at the core of their jobs. Being in a situation, which is not any fault of their own, these children and their families are left to navigate through the paperwork and rules and policies of not only the justice system and the courts but also the facility where their loved one is held. I think that the administration of these facilities do as much as they can to educate the visitors and children of these inmates as to what is expected of them while they are at the facility but has no responsibility to these families once they leave said facility. I think my vision would be to assist the families and make sure they understand what they are allowed to do or not do while they are there for a visit, and guide them to discussions with the children before and after their visit. I understand from the outside looking in these are uncomfortable times for families. There will be the loss of the loved one in the home setting; there may be loss of income which will put the remaining parent in peril. There will be the helpless feeling that the loved one might be in danger but also the anger that this loved one made bad