Our Mission

It’s no secret that mass incarceration has crippled communities and ripped families apart and that parental incarceration is a traumatic, isolating, and painful experience. At Project Avary, we help children heal from the impacts of having a parent in prison. We do this by surrounding youth with a long-term, supportive community of peer and adult mentors and by empowering them with leadership development skills so they can break free from generational cycles of trauma and incarceration.

Project Avary has been working with children of incarcerated parents for over two decades and are national leaders in supporting children with incarcerated parents. We began as a Bay Area summer camp in 1999 and have evolved into an extensive year-round leadership program that now serves children from across the country through our leadership programs, including our Bay Area-based leadership program , national online leadership program, and mentoring programs.

Project Avary believes in the power of community and relationships full of welcome and belonging to both heal and to empower growth. We bring children of incarcerated parents together within a community where younger children connect with peers, older teen leaders, and alumni counselors and mentors—many of whom have personal experience with parental incarceration. We call this community the “Avary Family”. Within the Avary Family we provide a culture where youth feel loved and cared for, where they know they deeply matter, and where they are surrounded by a long-term community of adult and peer mentors who see and honor their nobility and their highest potential.

Within this container of deep trust and respect, children of incarcerated parents join together to heal, to grow strong, and to step into bright futures that are free from the painful cycles of incarceration.

Hear the Deeply Profound personal stories of our youth on

Pulitzer Prize nominated Podcast, Ear Hustle:

The Need

The Bureau of Justice reports that the prison system costs taxpayers $80 billion a year to put 2.3 million people behind bars, leaving many children and families behind to pick up the pieces when a loved one goes away. 

These families bear numerous burdens when a loved one becomes incarcerated, including trauma, stigma, shame and isolation. Additionally, they are likely to experience increased financial strain, physical and emotional stress, and lack of external resources. 

Approximately 10 million children have experienced parental incarceration.

Yet, there is an appalling gap in services in meeting the needs of children with incarcerated parents, creating a massive public health crisis, created by our country’s system of mass incarceration. The unique needs of these children are overlooked and forgotten, as no government agency on the federal, state or local level recognizes this group of youth or takes responsibility for their well-being. Thus, these children are overlooked and their needs are unattended to which leads to a multitude of poor life outcomes and a continuance of the unjust intergenerational cycles of harm and incarceration.

“The Avary Way”:

BUILDING LEADERSHIP FROM WITHIN…

Our Solution:

We heal and counter the impacts of parental incarceration through four key evidence-based strategies which guide our Bay Area Leadership Program, National Online Leadership Program, and Mentoring Program. The four key “Avary Way” strategies are reflected below and are the most powerful things we provide youth who are facing the challenges of parental incarceration. With these tools, we are empowering youth by building leadership from within so they have the inner resources to overcome generational cycles of incarceration.