LEWISBURG – A Valley prison recently became a little more…kid friendly. The Union County Prison has transformed a secure, but stark multipurpose room, into a more welcoming location, it’s hoped this will allow for better child/parent visits.
The idea came from Aimee Benfer, who is a Union County Children and Youth Services Foster Care caseworker, and she suggested the project as part of her internship as an MSW candidate at Walden University. She says the original room was a little intimidating for little ones, “I saw this during those visits. The children were really having difficulty engaging with their parents. The room was bland and scary, especially to a child under the age of five. So I sought to, with the collaboration of Preston, the warden, and Matt Ernst, our director, bring a more positive environment for parent child engagement.”
Warden Doug Shaffer says the remodeled room is covered in art work painted by one of the inmates, “We had an inmate that’s a pretty good artist. He sketched the drawings in pencil, before we got him the paint. We would bring him out here and he enjoyed doing it. I think he did a really good job.”
Matt Ernst, Administrator of Union County Children and Youth Services, says this project was possible due to teamwork, “This is a great example of great collaboration within the county. A lot of times, different systems work solo and don’t work together or communicate. So, this is an example of systems working together and achieving something. I think it’s great and it’s something the county should continue to look at with all the systems working together in order to make benefits.”
The small, secured, multipurpose room at the Union County Prison is now utilized for inmate visits from attorneys, nurses, clergy, counselors, and others. Benfer says art supplies and toys will be placed in the room for the children to play with during visits with their fathers. You can see photos of the room online in this story posted at www.wkok.com.
