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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Sunnyvale resident Paula Tischler joined the Friends Outside Board of Directors this year.
Friends In Deed
Friends Outside helps families cope with the issues of imprisonment
By Nathan R. Huff
With children filling every space in the small classroom, the low volume and calm atmosphere is almost eerie. Youngsters at one table talk quietly with their art teacher while constructing magnetic buttons. At another table a small group of children work silently on drawings of eagles and butterflies.
Eleven-year-old Anthony Frost and 9-year-old Fantasia Lizarraga play with clay. Frost pieces together the word "goodbye" out of the multicolored clay. "This is our teacher's last day, so I'm saying goodbye," Frost explains.
The teacher is Meg Cornish, a social worker by trade with a passion for teaching children art. Each Tuesday and Friday she works with the group of close to two dozen children, helping them express their creativity through art. Like any other elementary school, the children write "dad" or "mom" on many of their drawings. Unlike any other elementary school students, many of the youngsters in this class will have to visit a county jail or state prison to deliver their art work.
The summer school is just one of several children's programs run by the local chapter of Friends Outside, a group dedicated to providing human services to people who are incarcerated and their families. Since 1955, the organization has been assisting individuals and their families in dealing with the impacts of imprisonment.
From inside to outside the jails, Friends Outside works through the county of Santa Clara and various public and private service organizations to assist those who society would often rather ignore.
"These people are the absolute scum of the earth in most people's mind," Friends Outside board member and Saratoga resident Dr. Art Anderson says. "But most of them are human beings more than anyone else."
Anderson, a retired psychiatrist, has spent countless hours with other volunteers working with inmates and their families. They do one-on-one counseling and assist in group activities like "creative conflict resolution"--all with the aim of helping prisoners end the cycle of jail and escape the criminal justice system.
"The '90s saw a swing to the extremes of 'three strikes' and younger felons being convicted as adults. I think it's time society starts looking at some other things," Anderson says, adding that prisoners and their families are the most underserved segment of the population. "As a retired psychiatrist, I think I might be able to contribute more this way than through my entire psychiatric career."
Of course Anderson is only one of many area individuals who volunteer their time for Friends Outside's many programs. Residents of Cupertino, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Palo Alto and other South Bay cities sit on the Friend's board of directors. Staff and volunteers come from all over the Bay Area, many of the younger teachers and mentors coming from the same neighborhoods as the families they help.
Founded in 1955 in Santa Clara County, Friends Outside now has almost a dozen chapters. The group has been working within jails since 1958. Jail staff, county courts and various public and private service organizations refer inmates and their families to Friends Outside, which runs a number of unique programs involving everything from supplying books to prisoners in "hard lock" areas and providing funds to replace I.D. cards, drivers licenses and other prerequisites for employment.
Programs like parenting classes, providing clothes for trials and release, helping families out at Christmas and a whole host of other services are all aimed at easing the transition from or to jail.
According to Friends Outside Executive Director Jennifer Tait, many people don't realize all the consequences of incarceration. Helping a prisoner to pay bills or move a parked car lets inmates avoid further compounding their troubles with the law. Tait, who has been part of Friends Outside since 1973 and executive director since 1997, originally became interested in the organization after teaching basic English in the women's correctional facility in Milpitas. The London native was instantly hooked on the Friends Outside philosophy of rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Neither Tait nor anyone else in the organization will disagree that many of the prisoners--Friends Outside serves serial killers to petty thieves--have committed terrible crimes. "Whatever the crime is," Tait says, "it's not our job to sit in judgement."
Obviously, not everyone in society takes such a non-judgmental attitude, and Tait acknowledges this. Close to 70 percent of Friends Outside funding comes from contracts with the county Department of Corrections, social services and local municipalities. Tait says that's the funding that goes into the prisoner programs. Then, when Friends Outside goes looking for the community contributions that make up the rest of the organization's budget, Tait highlights the youth and family programs the group provides.
Outside the jails, the group runs both youth and family programs. The family programs include providing canned food and food vouchers, clothing, furniture, diapers and gas vouchers. Friends Outside gives referrals to other agencies, helps out with rent and utility costs, runs family camps and support groups and offers parenting classes. Information on carpooling to prisons is also made available.
Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Friends Outside board members Dr. Art Anderson, left, and Loreta Eberhardt play important roles in the organization's efforts.
Sunnyvale resident Paula Tischler joined the group's Board of Directors this year. Though new to the board, Tischler has been working with Friends Outside for years. For 18 years, Tischler has participated in the group's annual Christmas Adopt-a-Family program. Tischler said each year, she sponsors four families who have loved ones in the correctional system.
"I try to take the big families," she said. "I usually end up buying three or four presents each for 18-22 children. Christmas is year round for me. When you're buying for that many kids, you have to buy all year."
Every year, the group finds a new location to hold their Christmas party for the children. "We send out messages to regular benefactors who have adopted more than one family and tell them that we need 'x' number of candy canes and stockings. I bought 1,400 candy canes a couple of years ago. I go to stores after Christmas and say, 'how much would I have to give you to relieve you of all of your Christmas stuff?' "
Another unique program Friends Outside offers is a grandmother's support group. Each week a group of eight to ten grandmothers who have taken over the parenting responsibilities for their grandchildren meet to talk.
According to Loreta Eberhardt, a Cupertino resident who coordinates the senior support group, Friends Outside's program for grandmothers is one of a kind. Because they all share the pain of having a son or daughter in the criminal justice system, they feel free to talk openly on any issue.
"Sometimes they say the only thing that has gotten them through is being able to come here and talk about things," Eberhardt says. "They share the good things and the bad things."
With assistance from volunteer Becky Smith, Eberhardt sits down with a diverse group of grandmothers who talk about everything from legal issues surrounding obtaining guardianship to their relationships with their adult children.
Eberhardt, a grandmother herself, says many of the grandparents have raised multiple children, usually on very miminmal resources. They face the unique challenges of having twice the generation gap of regular parents and more extensive health issues of their own. Friends Outside helps provide food, clothing and emergency financial assistance, as well as a support base to fall back on.
"They possess a strength that's almost unbelievable," Eberhardt says, adding that she also has a personal bias. "I can honestly say I truly enjoy them."
According to Friends Outside, this is all aimed at keeping families--in whatever form--on their feet while loved ones are in prison. And part of keeping families on their feet is preventing children from heading down the same path as their incarcerated family member.
"The children are victims, too," Tait says, explaining that people rarely see victims outside of the context of a crime. "They're totally innocent, but they're made to suffer." Many youths with parents or siblings imprisoned feel stigmatized. Often this leads to lower self-esteem and the search for friends who are in similar situations, which can lead to gangs. Gangs provide the support, both emotionally and physically, many children of incarcerated relatives can't find at home.
"Within the gang there is a sense of belonging," Anderson says. "You have to give up some things, but you also have discipline imposed on you."
By reaching these children and their families before they reach gangs, Friends Outside hopes to provide opportunities the streets cannot. However, by creating a supportive atmosphere of other families, children and teachers with real-life jail experience, participants no longer feel judged and are more open to rehabilitation, according to Anderson.
"I've learned there are can-do forces in self-help programs that work better than when 'good' people are working with 'bad' people," Anderson says.
Children take part in a completely free summer camp and summer school program, receive one-on-one tutoring and mentoring, and are connected to other teen programs and clubs. River rafting, backpacking and trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium are among the activities Friends Outside provides for children who might otherwise be on the street.
"What we're trying to do is interrupt the cycle in any number of places along the circle," Anderson says. "Some kids can come out of the most abusive and difficult situations and thrive, but others are brought down by it."
Standing in front of the roomful of busy children, 34-year-old Jason Soliz says his motivation for being there is not wanting any of these children to follow his path. "They're good kids," the former gang member Soliz says, "and what they're doing here sure beats the streets."
Sunnyvale Sun reporter Daniel Hindin contributed to this report.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
