Contact: Mary Saxon-Clipper, Detention Center, 240-777-9750;
Claire Gunster-Kirby, Pre-Trial Services, 240-777-5404;
Judith Vaughan-Prather, Comm. for Women, 301-279-8301
For Immediate Release: December 14, 2001

“Storybook Project”
Debuts at County’s Detention Center;
Inmate Mothers Record
Story Readings For Their Children

Montgomery County will soon become the first county in Maryland to adopt an innovative program – called the Storybook Project -- that provides children’s books and audio tapes to mothers incarcerated in the Detention Center so they may read and record the stories for their children. The books and tapes are then presented to the children, helping to form a bond between mother and child during the mother’s absence.

The program first came to the attention of staff at the Detention Center when the County Commission for Women was contacted by Judge Marielsa Bernard to provide books for inmates at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup who were participating in the Storybook Project that had been established there.

Through the efforts led by Commissioner Sheila Parker, the commission, staff and volunteers raised $475, enough to purchase 60 books (from a pre-approved list of titles), tapes and mailing envelopes.

During her work on the project, Parker mentioned the project to a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister, Mary Saxon-Clipper, a counselor at the Montgomery County Detention Center. When Saxon-Clipper expressed an interest in starting a Storybook Project at the local jail, the Commission for Women donated 26 of the 60 books and audio tapes to the facility, and the Potomac Valley Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. donated the tape recorders.

The first “reading” session will be held at the Detention Center on December 19 at 6:30 p.m. "Corrections staff are always seeking ways to lessen the impact of the incarceration of a parent on the children,” said Arthur Wallenstein, director of the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. “This collaborative project achieves that and re-enforces the message that there is support available in the community for these women and their families."

“Most incarcerated women are imprisoned for property crimes, not crimes of violence, and often they have been victims of abuse and/or neglect themselves,” said Judith Vaughan-Prather, executive director of the Commission for Women.

“The Storybook Project,” Vaughan-Prather said, “will help develop parenting skills and help maintain the relationship between mother and child during her incarceration. These may be small steps, but they are important in encouraging a healthy relationship and thus, a healthier, happier child.”

The Storybook Project was started “about two years ago” by Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, according to information on their web site – www.thelutheran.org -- and was based on a program conducted by Companions, Inc., an “ecumenical prison ministry that was conducting a similar project at the Cook County (Illinois) Jail.”

For more information about the local Storybook Project, call Mary Saxon-Clipper at the Detention Center, 240-777-9750 or Judith Vaughan Prather at the Commission for Women, 301-279-8301.