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Children with parents in prison will be the focus of a keynote speech presented during Millersville University’s Civic and Community Engagement Distinguished Civic Leadership Awards. The event, which will be held on Monday, April 7 at 7 p.m., will feature Nell Bernstein, a nationally recognized authority on children with a parent in prison.
Bernstein’s keynote speech, titled “Invisible Children: When a Parent Goes to Prison,” will be held on Millersville’s campus in Lehr Room of Bolger Conference Center in Gordiner Hall.
The MU Civic and Community Engagement Distinguished Civic Leadership Awards publicly recognize notable civic and community contributions on the part of individuals and entities that have had a positive impact locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.
Bernstein has addressed policy makers, grant makers and criminal justice professionals across the country about the impact of incarceration on families. She founded the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership, which advocates a “Children of Incarcerated Parents’ Bill of Rights” that has been adopted by coalitions and legislative bodies across the country. For her advocacy on behalf of children of incarcerated parents, she was recently recognized as a “Champion of Change” by the White House.
She has made numerous radio and television appearances; her writing has appeared in numerous national magazines; and she received a media fellowship from the Open Society Institute and a Journalism Fellowship in Child and Family Policy from the University of Maryland School of Journalism.
Her book, “All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated,” was selected by Newsweek Magazine as a pick of the week, named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and a top 10 book of the year by the Online Review of Books. She also authored a forthcoming book on the juvenile justice system, “Burning Down the House: The End of the Juvenile Prison,” which will be released in May.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dr. Mary Glazier, director of Millersville’s Center for Public Scholarship and Social Change Civic and Community Engagement, at Mary.Glazier@millersville.edu or 717-371-5663.
