Everybody needs somebody to love and everyone has love to give. When families support each other through words of encouragement and trust, most members are able to reach their goals. The Ties That Binds Us is a venue of communication with the family of the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated to rebuild long lasting healthy relationships.

Over the course of its year history, Tower readily responded to the needs of the people it serves. It has become very apparent to TOR the families of offenders who are currently incarcerated have special requirements which need to be acknowledged. The number of children, whose lives are affected daily by the incarceration of one parent, and sometimes two, is growing in an exponential manner. These children often have specific issues or problems associated with a parent’s incarceration.

Parenting classes are offered for ex-offenders and/or their mates who are working to reintegrate back into parenting roles. In some cases, those roles were never clearly defined or never existed before imprisonment. When a parent is sent to a corrections center, many aspects of family life change dramatically. Financial hardships ensue, emotional support systems are broken, and living arrangements are altered. Children may not see or hear from their incarcerated parent during the parent’s incarceration. It can be very hard to accept their returning parent. Tower provides family counseling as a way to restore the family unit. Also included in the family counseling component of TTTBU is couples counseling. The forced separation of mates, married or unmarried, can cause enormous damages in the couple’s relationship. In many instances, those relationships come to an end, which further impacts the lives of the children who are part of that family unit. The time is now to stop the next generation from following in their incarcerated parents’ footsteps.

Tower of Refuge’s Families of the Incarcerated Support Group is for parents, friends, grandparents, men and women who have an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated friend or love one. The group offers a safe and friendly place to come together for friendship, advice, and encouragement. This is an additional way to extend TOR’s services and expertise to the greater Springfield community. What was once a rare anomaly (incarceration of a family member or friend) is now a common occurrence in communities all over the country. Many families are too embarrassed to acknowledge they have had or still do have a loved one locked behind bars. TOR’s support group helps link families and friends together to strengthen those “ties” necessary for the successful reentries of TOR’s clients to families and community.