When I was eleven years old, my mom was sentenced to five years in prison. She had been struggling with mental illness and substance abuse most of my life. For some reason, it had never crossed my eleven-year-old mind that there was a possibility of her going to prison. The reality of her situation, of my situation, only hit me when I heard the "This is a collect call from____" and my mom crying quietly over the phone. My entire world changed then. I grew up instantly, learning how to be strong for my mother, hiding what I was going through when interacting with my peers, and escaping into my schoolwork. Growing up in a suburban area, I felt extremely isolated and alone in my experience. Nobody I knew had a father or a mother in prison. The only time I saw other children who were going through the same as me was in the prison visiting room. I would see them with their moms, sitting on their laps or playing Scrabble with them just like I was doing. I would wonder what they were thinking, if they felt the same deep grief that I did whenever I had to leave the prison, knowing that it would be six more months before I could be hugged by Mom again. When my mom got out of prison, right before the COVID-19 Pandemic started, I felt a weird emptiness. I felt that I had gone through so much pain for nothing to really change. That is when I started thinking about the kids in that prison visiting room, about little eleven-year-old me. How could I help them? How could I help children of incarcerated parents find resources and support? During the pandemic, I started sharing my story in an effort to raise money for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Program. We raised over $7000, and I realized the importance of sharing my story and developing evidence-based programs. The success of my fundraising campaign, as well as my own lived experience of having a parent in prison, motivated me to pursue my majors in psychology and criminology at the University of Maryland (UMD). The academic skills and child development coursework that I have taken at my university have also inspired me to start the UnLocked Project, an extension of my advocacy in high school. With this project, I aim to spread awareness about the impacts of parental incarceration and help children in the DMV area find community and resources through information sessions, peer support groups, and a resource hub. The UnLocked Project has already hosted its first peer support group and virtual information session, connecting multiple children of incarcerated parents and formerly incarcerated parents. It has also been featured in the university's school newspapers. I am so excited to continue to destigmatize the topic of parental incarceration by sharing my and other's stories. My mother’s incarceration will continue to impact me for the rest of my life. Her path out of prison has not been linear, and I have suffered a lot emotionally watching her struggle. However, I want to use my education and my lived experience to create a positive, lasting impact on other children like me and provide them with a community that I never knew existed, one person at a time. Check it out here: https://unlockedproject.org/

As a student studying psychology and criminology, my experience with maternal incarceration has served as the main motivation in my endeavors to become a forensic psychologist and develop evidence-based programs that help children of incarcerated parents. When I was eleven years old, my mom was sentenced to five years in prison. She had been struggling with mental illness and substance abuse most of my life. For some reason, it had never crossed my eleven-year-old mind that there was a possibility of her going to prison. The reality of her situaton, of my situation, only hit me when I heard the "This is a collect call from---" and my mom crying quietly over the phone. My entire world changed then. I grew up instantly, learning how to be strong for my mother, hiding what I was going through when interacting with my peers, and escaping into my schoolwork. Growing up in a suburban area, I felt extremely isolated and alone. Nobody I knew had a father or a mother in prison. The only time I saw other children who were going through the same as me was in the prison visiting room. I would see them with their moms, sitting on their laps or playing Scrabble with them just like I was doing. I would wonder what they were thinking, if they felt the same grief that I did whenever I had to leave the prison, knowing that it would be six more months before I could be hugged by Mom again. When my mom got out of prison, right before the Pandemic started, I felt a weird emptiness. I felt that I had gone through so much pain for nothing to really change. That is when I started thinking about the kids in that prison visiting room, about little eleven-year-old me. How could I help them? How could I help children of incarcerated parents find resources and support? So, I started sharing my story in an effort to raise money for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Program. We raised over $7000, and I realized the importance of sharing my story and developing evidence-based programs. The success of my fundraising campaign motivated me to pursue my majors in psychology and criminology at the University of Maryland and has also inspired me to start the UnLocked Project. With this project, I aim to spread awareness about the impacts of parental incarceration and help children in the DMV area find community and resources through information sessions, peer support groups, and a resource hub. I am excited about my future endeavors of conducting research as a forensic psychologist and making the UnLocked Project a non-profit organization. My mother’s incarceration will continue to impact me for the rest of my life. Her path out of prison has not been linear, and I have suffered a lot emotionally watching her struggle. However, I want to use my education and my lived experience to create a positive, lasting impact on other children like me.

When I was eleven years old, my mom was sentenced to five years in prison. She had been struggling with mental illness and substance abuse most of my life. For some reason, it had never crossed my eleven-year-old mind that there was a possibility of her going to prison. The reality of her situation, of my situation, only hit me when I heard the "This is a collect call from____" and my mom crying quietly over the phone. My entire world changed then. I grew up instantly, learning how to be strong for my mother, hiding what I was going through when interacting with my peers, and escaping into my schoolwork. Growing up in a suburban area, I felt extremely isolated and alone in my experience. Nobody I knew had a father or a mother in prison. The only time I saw other children who were going through the same as me was in the prison visiting room. I would see them with their moms, sitting on their laps or playing Scrabble with them just like I was doing. I would wonder what they were thinking, if they felt the same deep grief that I did whenever I had to leave the prison, knowing that it would be six more months before I could be hugged by Mom again. When my mom got out of prison, right before the COVID-19 Pandemic started, I felt a weird emptiness. I felt that I had gone through so much pain for nothing to really change. That is when I started thinking about the kids in that prison visiting room, about little eleven-year-old me. How could I help them? How could I help children of incarcerated parents find resources and support? During the pandemic, I started sharing my story in an effort to raise money for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Program. We raised over $7000, and I realized the importance of sharing my story and developing evidence-based programs. The success of my fundraising campaign, as well as my own lived experience of having a parent in prison, motivated me to pursue my majors in psychology and criminology at the University of Maryland (UMD). The academic skills and child development coursework that I have taken at my university have also inspired me to start the UnLocked Project, an extension of my advocacy in high school. With this project, I aim to spread awareness about the impacts of parental incarceration and help children in the DMV area find community and resources through information sessions, peer support groups, and a resource hub. The UnLocked Project has already hosted its first peer support group and virtual information session, connecting multiple children of incarcerated parents and formerly incarcerated parents. It has also been featured in the university's school newspapers. I am so excited to continue to destigmatize the topic of parental incarceration by sharing my and other's stories. My mother’s incarceration will continue to impact me for the rest of my life. Her path out of prison has not been linear, and I have suffered a lot emotionally watching her struggle. However, I want to use my education and my lived experience to create a positive, lasting impact on other children like me and provide them with a community that I never knew existed, one person at a time. Check it out here: https://unlockedproject.org/

As a student studying psychology and criminology, my experience with maternal incarceration has served as the main motivation in my endeavors to become a forensic psychologist and develop evidence-based programs that help children of incarcerated parents. When I was eleven years old, my mom was sentenced to five years in prison. She had been struggling with mental illness and substance abuse most of my life. For some reason, it had never crossed my eleven-year-old mind that there was a possibility of her going to prison. The reality of her situation, of my situation, only hit me when I heard the "This is a collect call from---" and my mom crying quietly over the phone. My entire world changed then. I grew up instantly, learning how to be strong for my mother, hiding what I was going through when interacting with my peers, and escaping into my schoolwork. Growing up in a suburban area, I felt extremely isolated and alone in my experience. Nobody I knew had a father or a mother in prison. The only time I saw other children who were going through the same as me was in the prison visiting room. I would see them with their moms, sitting on their laps or playing Scrabble with them just like I was doing. I would wonder what they were thinking, if they felt the same deep grief that I did whenever I had to leave the prison, knowing that it would be six more months before I could be hugged by Mom again. When my mom got out of prison, right before the COVID-19 Pandemic started, I felt a weird emptiness. I felt that I had gone through so much pain for nothing to really change. That is when I started thinking about the kids in that prison visiting room, about little eleven-year-old me. How could I help them? How could I help children of incarcerated parents find resources and support? During the pandemic, I started sharing my story in an effort to raise money for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree Program. We raised over $7000, and I realized the importance of sharing my story and developing evidence-based programs. The success of my fundraising campaign, as well as my own lived experience of having a parent in prison, motivated me to pursue my majors in psychology and criminology at the University of Maryland (UMD). The academic skills and child development coursework that I have taken at my university have also inspired me to start the UnLocked Project, an extension of my advocacy in high school. With this project, I aim to spread awareness about the impacts of parental incarceration and help children in the DMV area find community and resources through information sessions, peer support groups, and a resource hub. I am excited to keep learning about the diverse experiences of children of incarcerated parents at my university, but most importantly I am excited to use this newfound knowledge and apply it in my future endeavors of conducting research as a forensic psychologist and making the UnLocked Project a non-profit organization. My mother’s incarceration will continue to impact me for the rest of my life. Her path out of prison has not been linear, and I have suffered a lot emotionally watching her struggle. However, I want to use my education and my lived experience to create a positive, lasting impact on other children like me and provide them with a community that I never knew existed, one person at a time.