Laure Clemons, Founder and Director of Extended Family, a community-based non-profit organization located in Cherokee County, Alabama, was recently interviewed by Ana Gascon Ivey of the website GoodRx.com for a series of articles titled “10 ways to Help Children Who Have Incarcerated Parents,” published on April 4, 2023, and “15 Coping Tips for Families Dealing with Incarceration,” published on April 5, 2023. Mrs. Clemons is cited regularly throughout the articles, particularly in the section on “Coping strategies for children dealing with incarceration,” based on material she has developed into a nine-week curriculum for children ages 5 to 18 for a program called Extended Family for Kids (EFK). EFK is taught to children in Cherokee County, as well as in DeKalb, Etowah, and Calhoun Counties. Mrs. Clemons also conducts trainings for Program Leaders for EFK across Alabama and the US.
The first GoodRx article also quotes Mrs. Clemons in the section “How to talk to a child about their parent’s imprisonment,” and uses some of the strategies she has developed for her EFK programs, including the most important message to children with an incarcerated family member – “It’s not your fault!” Clemons states, “Words are powerful, and our kids need to hear the words over and over, ‘It’s not your fault!’” Mrs. Clemons is intimately familiar with the subject of how to support a family through having a loved one incarcerated because her daughters were 12 and 16 years old when her husband was incarcerated. She looked around for support for herself and her children, and upon realizing how little was available, created the curriculum that has helped thousands of children today!
For more information about Laure Clemons and her incredible journey from adversity to success, visit the Extended Family website https://www.extendedfamilyhelp.org/. Mrs. Clemons can be contacted directly at 256-927-7997 or by email at laure@extendedfamilyhelp.org.
Read the GoodRx articles:
https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/childrens-health/help-children-cope-incarcerated-parents
