00:00:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on one zero six point seven Light FM.
00:00:14
Speaker 2: Good morning, and thanks for listening to get connected. When someone is incarcerated, not only are their lives impacted, but prison can also be tough for families, both emotionally and financially. Loved Ones Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prisons. Operated by Osborne Association in partnership with the New York State Department of Corrections. The program provides free transportation from Brooklyn and the Bronx to upstate facilities in an effort to ease the emotional and financial burden on families and lower recidivism rates. My guests are Michelle Howard, Chief Program Officer and Executive vice President, and Tiffany Myrik, Children Youth and Family Service Director for Osborne Association. Ladies, thank you for being on the show.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us, Thank you so much.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: For the full schedule, and to reserve a seat. Families can visit Osborneeny dot org slash bus and we will start with you. Michelle Osborne House does many things. Can you talk about the scope and the role of Osborne House.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: Yes, the Osborne Association has been around for nearly one hundred years supporting families that are impacted by the criminal legal system. So we offer programming to keep people out of jail, in prison, we offer services inside jails and prisons, re entry support, and then we support families all along the way.
00:01:38
Speaker 2: So regarding families, which is what we're focused on today, how does incarceration impact families? Can you drill down a little bit.
00:01:46
Speaker 4: The families experienced the cost of incarceration alongside their loved one, and that is through the separation from their loved one from their family and community. It's also the financial cost of being able to stay in time. It's very expensive to be able to visit in person, and then there's also the cost of staying in touch in other ways through providing money on a loved one's commissary accounts to support them, as well as the cost of emails and correspondents back and forth with the loved one who's inside.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting on your site. I was reading about visiting and keeping in communication. As you say in the money involved visiting someone is not straightforward at all. Even prison visits have been limited last year since a guard strike, so that's on top of everything else.
00:02:37
Speaker 4: Absolutely visiting still has not been restored to the level and availability that it was before last year's strike, so weekday visiting has not resumed in many places, so weekends are critical times for families to be able to visit their loved ones in prison, and holiday visiting also has not yet been restored, so it's a much more limited time frame that families have to be able to see and hug and be with their loved ones.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: So what is loved Ones Link and why did Osborne create this program.
00:03:11
Speaker 4: Loved One's Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prison. It's operated by Osborne in partnership with DOCS, and we offer buses that are not only free, but our supportive opportunities for families to be with their loved one and to get to know others who are in a similar circumstance. And we are so grateful to DOCS for bringing back a free bus program. It's something that we have been advocating for for many years and we're very grateful to have this opportunity to support families in this way.
00:03:54
Speaker 2: So docs is the New York State Department of Corrections. You said there was a program before, Why were willing to restart it and why did it end in the first place.
00:04:03
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why it ended in the first place. It used to be operated by the Department of Corrections themselves. I believe it may have been due to funding issues that the program closed a number of years ago, and without the opportunity for free buses, families have to bear that cost of visiting themselves, and it can be quite pricey to be able to take transportation across the state, sometimes eight hours away by car or bus, to visit their loved ones. So it's a big gift to families to be able to bring back free transportation.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Research shows that people who receive visits while incarcerated have lower recidivism rates. Can you talk about that for inmates and then for families.
00:04:48
Speaker 4: For people who are incarcerated, families can be a crucial element of their support network, and those relationships are already strained through being removed from their household and community in the state prison. But visiting is a way to maintain and to strengthen those ties, and there's nothing like being able to hug your parents or child or loved one. We also support visiting in other ways. Osborne also operates a video visiting program to provide free video visits for families and supports all forms of visiting. But there's nothing that can replace that in person visit with a loved one.
00:05:30
Speaker 2: What do we know about how it impacts children who are missing their parents, haven't seen their parent.
00:05:35
Speaker 4: For a child, being able to be with their parents and loved one and to see for themselves that their parents is okay and loves them and supports them and wants to know what's happening in their lives is so critical and visiting can decrease children's emotional distress from that separation with their loved one and provide an opportunity to that experience of separation, which supports the child both during that separation and eases the transition when that parent does come back home.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Before we get to the details of the program with Tiffany, I think there might be people that would say, why would a child or why should a child see their parent in this situation in jail. It's probably not safe, maybe it's not the best environment. To your thoughts on.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: That, I think, well, it's not an ideal circumstance. Certainly to have a parent who's incarcerated, being able to visit with that parent is critical to the child's well being and to the parent to have that opportunity at least to have the visit. And while there are some children who may choose not to visit their parent or loved one in prison, there are so many children who long to be able to be with their parent, to share with them about what's going on in their life. And we want to be able to support children in having that opportunity need to be with their parents and loved one.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Loved One's Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prisons. It's operated by Osborne Association in partnership with the New York State Department of Corrections. My guests are Michelle Howard, chief Program Officer and Executive vice President, and Tiffany Myrick, the Children, Youth and Family Services Director for Osbourne Association. You're listening to get connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. Amina del Rio so Tiffany, can you walk us through how loved ones Link works, where the buses leave from, what facilities they travel to, and who can sign up?
00:07:37
Speaker 3: Sure? So we're currently leaving from Albany, Buffalo, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Rochester, and Syracuse and we're traveling to the follow up facilities albiond Attica, Bedford Hills, Clinton, Collins, Eastern Elmira, Fishco, Franklin, green Haven, Lakeview, Orleans, sing singh Taconic, Ulster, Upstate, Wendy, Woodbourne, and Wyoming.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Are these buses free to only families? Can friends use them? How do you get on a list to be able to participate?
00:08:14
Speaker 3: So the only criteria for border these buses is being connected to someone who's incarcerated, and they're incarcerated in one of the facilities I mentioned. In order to sign up, all you would need is their name, their den number, and like I said, the facility that they are in.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Michelle talked about people meeting and becoming part of a bit of a community funding support. Do you find that to be true for the people you've seen that have been taking these buses?
00:08:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
00:08:45
Speaker 2: So.
00:08:46
Speaker 3: We do a lot of referrals to our programs under the Children, Youth and Family Services Department, and what we find, especially for young people in our youth programming, incarceration of a parent is isolating, right. Sometimes you feel like it's just you that's being impacted by this, and to discover a community of people who have a shared experience is empowering, right. You see other people dealing with this and thriving seeing how they maintain their connections. So there's absolutely strength in a community that is being built through the program.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: Some of these trips are very long. What should someone expect on a Loved Ones Link trip?
00:09:27
Speaker 3: So we've worked really hard to ensure that the buses are comfortable. They include charging ports. On the longer trips, we're providing snacks. What they can expect is a friendly Osborne staff will volunteer greeting them at the pickup point, making sure that they have the appropriate documents, making sure that their attire will be appropriate for the facility. Just a friendly and safe ride to the facility in order to connect with their loved one.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: So right now, all the trips are on weekends. That has to do with visiting hours being closed during the week. As we mentioned earlier, are the trips on weekends though very busy, is it hard to get a seat?
00:10:06
Speaker 3: So just depending on the facility, the demand looks different. So we definitely are still in our rollout phase and looking for more families to sign up for the program. So availability is not an issue right now. Like I said, it just depends on the facility. But if we do encounter our family and there's a bus that doesn't have availability, we let them know we'll schedule them for the next upcoming trip.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: And are these all round trips same day or some of them overnight?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: Some trips are overnight, so our upstate departures are going to be overnight trips. Like a trip coming from Buffalo to a downstate facility that is going to be an overnight trip.
00:10:49
Speaker 2: And what kind of feedback have you gotten so far from the families as you're rolling out the program.
00:10:54
Speaker 3: We've gotten such good feedback it just makes it makes what we're doing so worthwhile. Like we get constantly we get messages from families telling us that they haven't been able to see their loved one in person for over a year, for two years, and the feedback has been so amazing, Like we even had a number of writers who want to donate in order to keep the program going, and that is so rewarding.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: What would you say or what would you like people to understand about the people who are taking these trips to visit their families and how it impacts them to be able to do it.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: I think it's important for people to understand that incarceration doesn't take away a person's identity or their role as a parent. Those bonds still matter, and so for our children that are going to see a parent, this is so important. You know, having a relationship and an emotional connection with a parent, it ties into the identity of that young person. We know, for a baby through five years old, those are critical years and attachment is really important. So being able to have a stable schedule where that child is still getting to connect with their parent is so important. For our teens, it's important as well maintaining that connection. And just for the incarcerated individual, being able to see a familiar face, a friendly face, maintaining that connection is really impactful for them as well. It has an effect on their mental health. It provides hope that when they do return they will have these connections. Those bonds are not broken, so it's just impactful on so many friends who have these visits.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: And Michelle, i'ld like to ask you a similar question. For people who aren't connected to these families or involved in this world at all, what would you like them to understand about the program and the importance of it for these families.
00:12:50
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that I want people to know that the impact of incarceration is widespread and that it impacts so many people in the communit that if you think that you don't know anyone with a loved one who's incarcerated, you are probably incorrect. Then there are so many families that have a loved one who's inside and who long to be with them, who may or may not be sharing that with their neighbors and the people around them. And also that if there's anyone who is interested in volunteering or being a part of supporting these families and seeing their loved ones to also please reach out to us that we are recruiting volunteers to help with all aspects of this program and would love to meet you and have your support.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: You can find out more at Osborne Andy dot org slash bus. My guests have been Michelle Howard and Tiffany Myrik of Osborne Association. Thank you for being on to get connected.
00:13:48
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It was wonderful to meet you.
00:13:51
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on one IO six point seven light Fm. The views and opinions of our do not necessarily reflect the views of the station. If you missed any part of our show or want to share it, visit our website for downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Welcome to get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on one zero six point seven Light FM.
00:00:14
Speaker 2: Good morning, and thanks for listening to get connected. When someone is incarcerated, not only are their lives impacted, but prison can also be tough for families, both emotionally and financially. Loved Ones Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prisons. Operated by Osborne Association in partnership with the New York State Department of Corrections. The program provides free transportation from Brooklyn and the Bronx to upstate facilities in an effort to ease the emotional and financial burden on families and lower recidivism rates. My guests are Michelle Howard, Chief Program Officer and Executive vice President, and Tiffany Myrik, Children Youth and Family Service Director for Osborne Association. Ladies, thank you for being on the show.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us, Thank you so much.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: For the full schedule, and to reserve a seat. Families can visit Osborneeny dot org slash bus and we will start with you. Michelle Osborne House does many things. Can you talk about the scope and the role of Osborne House.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: Yes, the Osborne Association has been around for nearly one hundred years supporting families that are impacted by the criminal legal system. So we offer programming to keep people out of jail, in prison, we offer services inside jails and prisons, re entry support, and then we support families all along the way.
00:01:38
Speaker 2: So regarding families, which is what we're focused on today, how does incarceration impact families? Can you drill down a little bit.
00:01:46
Speaker 4: The families experienced the cost of incarceration alongside their loved one, and that is through the separation from their loved one from their family and community. It's also the financial cost of being able to stay in time. It's very expensive to be able to visit in person, and then there's also the cost of staying in touch in other ways through providing money on a loved one's commissary accounts to support them, as well as the cost of emails and correspondents back and forth with the loved one who's inside.
00:02:20
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting on your site. I was reading about visiting and keeping in communication. As you say in the money involved visiting someone is not straightforward at all. Even prison visits have been limited last year since a guard strike, so that's on top of everything else.
00:02:37
Speaker 4: Absolutely visiting still has not been restored to the level and availability that it was before last year's strike, so weekday visiting has not resumed in many places, so weekends are critical times for families to be able to visit their loved ones in prison, and holiday visiting also has not yet been restored, so it's a much more limited time frame that families have to be able to see and hug and be with their loved ones.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: So what is loved Ones Link and why did Osborne create this program.
00:03:11
Speaker 4: Loved One's Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prison. It's operated by Osborne in partnership with DOCS, and we offer buses that are not only free, but our supportive opportunities for families to be with their loved one and to get to know others who are in a similar circumstance. And we are so grateful to DOCS for bringing back a free bus program. It's something that we have been advocating for for many years and we're very grateful to have this opportunity to support families in this way.
00:03:54
Speaker 2: So docs is the New York State Department of Corrections. You said there was a program before, Why were willing to restart it and why did it end in the first place.
00:04:03
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why it ended in the first place. It used to be operated by the Department of Corrections themselves. I believe it may have been due to funding issues that the program closed a number of years ago, and without the opportunity for free buses, families have to bear that cost of visiting themselves, and it can be quite pricey to be able to take transportation across the state, sometimes eight hours away by car or bus, to visit their loved ones. So it's a big gift to families to be able to bring back free transportation.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Research shows that people who receive visits while incarcerated have lower recidivism rates. Can you talk about that for inmates and then for families.
00:04:48
Speaker 4: For people who are incarcerated, families can be a crucial element of their support network, and those relationships are already strained through being removed from their household and community in the state prison. But visiting is a way to maintain and to strengthen those ties, and there's nothing like being able to hug your parents or child or loved one. We also support visiting in other ways. Osborne also operates a video visiting program to provide free video visits for families and supports all forms of visiting. But there's nothing that can replace that in person visit with a loved one.
00:05:30
Speaker 2: What do we know about how it impacts children who are missing their parents, haven't seen their parent.
00:05:35
Speaker 4: For a child, being able to be with their parents and loved one and to see for themselves that their parents is okay and loves them and supports them and wants to know what's happening in their lives is so critical and visiting can decrease children's emotional distress from that separation with their loved one and provide an opportunity to that experience of separation, which supports the child both during that separation and eases the transition when that parent does come back home.
00:06:10
Speaker 2: Before we get to the details of the program with Tiffany, I think there might be people that would say, why would a child or why should a child see their parent in this situation in jail. It's probably not safe, maybe it's not the best environment. To your thoughts on.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: That, I think, well, it's not an ideal circumstance. Certainly to have a parent who's incarcerated, being able to visit with that parent is critical to the child's well being and to the parent to have that opportunity at least to have the visit. And while there are some children who may choose not to visit their parent or loved one in prison, there are so many children who long to be able to be with their parent, to share with them about what's going on in their life. And we want to be able to support children in having that opportunity need to be with their parents and loved one.
00:07:02
Speaker 2: Loved One's Link is a free bus program that helps families visit incarcerated loved ones in New York State prisons. It's operated by Osborne Association in partnership with the New York State Department of Corrections. My guests are Michelle Howard, chief Program Officer and Executive vice President, and Tiffany Myrick, the Children, Youth and Family Services Director for Osbourne Association. You're listening to get connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. Amina del Rio so Tiffany, can you walk us through how loved ones Link works, where the buses leave from, what facilities they travel to, and who can sign up?
00:07:37
Speaker 3: Sure? So we're currently leaving from Albany, Buffalo, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Rochester, and Syracuse and we're traveling to the follow up facilities albiond Attica, Bedford Hills, Clinton, Collins, Eastern Elmira, Fishco, Franklin, green Haven, Lakeview, Orleans, sing singh Taconic, Ulster, Upstate, Wendy, Woodbourne, and Wyoming.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Are these buses free to only families? Can friends use them? How do you get on a list to be able to participate?
00:08:14
Speaker 3: So the only criteria for border these buses is being connected to someone who's incarcerated, and they're incarcerated in one of the facilities I mentioned. In order to sign up, all you would need is their name, their den number, and like I said, the facility that they are in.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Michelle talked about people meeting and becoming part of a bit of a community funding support. Do you find that to be true for the people you've seen that have been taking these buses?
00:08:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
00:08:45
Speaker 2: So.
00:08:46
Speaker 3: We do a lot of referrals to our programs under the Children, Youth and Family Services Department, and what we find, especially for young people in our youth programming, incarceration of a parent is isolating, right. Sometimes you feel like it's just you that's being impacted by this, and to discover a community of people who have a shared experience is empowering, right. You see other people dealing with this and thriving seeing how they maintain their connections. So there's absolutely strength in a community that is being built through the program.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: Some of these trips are very long. What should someone expect on a Loved Ones Link trip?
00:09:27
Speaker 3: So we've worked really hard to ensure that the buses are comfortable. They include charging ports. On the longer trips, we're providing snacks. What they can expect is a friendly Osborne staff will volunteer greeting them at the pickup point, making sure that they have the appropriate documents, making sure that their attire will be appropriate for the facility. Just a friendly and safe ride to the facility in order to connect with their loved one.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: So right now, all the trips are on weekends. That has to do with visiting hours being closed during the week. As we mentioned earlier, are the trips on weekends though very busy, is it hard to get a seat?
00:10:06
Speaker 3: So just depending on the facility, the demand looks different. So we definitely are still in our rollout phase and looking for more families to sign up for the program. So availability is not an issue right now. Like I said, it just depends on the facility. But if we do encounter our family and there's a bus that doesn't have availability, we let them know we'll schedule them for the next upcoming trip.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: And are these all round trips same day or some of them overnight?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: Some trips are overnight, so our upstate departures are going to be overnight trips. Like a trip coming from Buffalo to a downstate facility that is going to be an overnight trip.
00:10:49
Speaker 2: And what kind of feedback have you gotten so far from the families as you're rolling out the program.
00:10:54
Speaker 3: We've gotten such good feedback it just makes it makes what we're doing so worthwhile. Like we get constantly we get messages from families telling us that they haven't been able to see their loved one in person for over a year, for two years, and the feedback has been so amazing, Like we even had a number of writers who want to donate in order to keep the program going, and that is so rewarding.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: What would you say or what would you like people to understand about the people who are taking these trips to visit their families and how it impacts them to be able to do it.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: I think it's important for people to understand that incarceration doesn't take away a person's identity or their role as a parent. Those bonds still matter, and so for our children that are going to see a parent, this is so important. You know, having a relationship and an emotional connection with a parent, it ties into the identity of that young person. We know, for a baby through five years old, those are critical years and attachment is really important. So being able to have a stable schedule where that child is still getting to connect with their parent is so important. For our teens, it's important as well maintaining that connection. And just for the incarcerated individual, being able to see a familiar face, a friendly face, maintaining that connection is really impactful for them as well. It has an effect on their mental health. It provides hope that when they do return they will have these connections. Those bonds are not broken, so it's just impactful on so many friends who have these visits.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: And Michelle, i'ld like to ask you a similar question. For people who aren't connected to these families or involved in this world at all, what would you like them to understand about the program and the importance of it for these families.
00:12:50
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that I want people to know that the impact of incarceration is widespread and that it impacts so many people in the communit that if you think that you don't know anyone with a loved one who's incarcerated, you are probably incorrect. Then there are so many families that have a loved one who's inside and who long to be with them, who may or may not be sharing that with their neighbors and the people around them. And also that if there's anyone who is interested in volunteering or being a part of supporting these families and seeing their loved ones to also please reach out to us that we are recruiting volunteers to help with all aspects of this program and would love to meet you and have your support.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: You can find out more at Osborne Andy dot org slash bus. My guests have been Michelle Howard and Tiffany Myrik of Osborne Association. Thank you for being on to get connected.
00:13:48
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It was wonderful to meet you.
00:13:51
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on one IO six point seven light Fm. The views and opinions of our do not necessarily reflect the views of the station. If you missed any part of our show or want to share it, visit our website for downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com. Thanks for listening.
