Families first learning lab (ffll) will implement new and enhance existing alternative justice programs for parents facing incarceration and youth exposed to parental incarceration

Ffll will initiate project efforts by creating an ad hoc family circle committee to discuss program planning and implementation relevant to this grant, to include parental and youth voices. The goal will be to give parents the support, education, and skills necessary to improve whole-family outcomes such as parenting classes, parent-child interaction opportunities, teen support to work with the whole family, and accessible virtual education platforms to reach rural communities throughout montana. The anticipated outcomes of these programs include increasing family preservation, improving parental attachment, increasing healthy child development, preventing children from entering the foster care system or entering back into the foster system, improving parenting skills, reducing the likelihood of future involvement in the criminal justice system, and reducing the financial impact on the criminal justice and/or child welfare systems.