Not every kid in school has a happy home life to go back to every night. In fact, some children are waiting for a parent or two to get out of prison or jail. The PATHfinder program--PATH is Paving a Trail of Hope--and POPS the Club, for Pains of the Prison System, work to help teen children of incarcerated parents. They not only get to meet and share stories, they get to express themselves through writing and art.
Oregon-based POPS and PATHfinder collected some of the student work for the recently-published book Advice to 9th Graders: Stories, Poetry, Art & Other Wisdom. There's a wealth of material in what the older teens say to younger students in similar situations.
We visit with editors Amy Friedman and Leticia Longoria-Navarro, and get to hear some of the work students contributed.