Building Family Resilience in the Shadow of Incarceration

Описание: Building Family Resilience in the Shadow of Incarceration

Presented By: Amy Morgan, Ph.D., LMFT
UMD Department of Family Science

This webinar presentation examines incarceration as a critical social determinant of health that creates cascading risks for families, while exploring pathways to resilience and recovery. We’ll investigate how parental incarceration disrupts family systems through economic instability, social stigma, childhood trauma, and fractured relationships – all factors that significantly increase vulnerability to substance use disorders across generations.

Rather than focusing solely on deficits, this presentation highlights evidence-based strategies for building family resilience within these challenging circumstances. Participants will learn to identify protective factors that help families navigate incarceration-related trauma and develop practical approaches for strengthening family systems to interrupt cycles of risk. Special attention will be given to understanding how these family-level impacts connect to broader substance use prevention and treatment efforts.

Drawing from research on social determinants of health, trauma-informed care, and best available evidence on incarceration and reentry, this presentation provides extension educators and health professionals with frameworks for recognizing both vulnerability and strength in families affected by incarceration, while offering concrete strategies for supporting resilience and reducing substance use risk.


Learning Objectives:
1. Understand incarceration as a social determinant of health
2. Identify pathways through which incarceration increases risk for substance use disorders
3. Recognize resilience factors and protective strategies that help families navigate incarceration-related challenges and reduce long-term health risks
4. Develop practical approaches for addressing incarceration’s family impacts into prevention and treatment programming
5. Apply trauma-informed and strength-based frameworks when working with families affected by incarceration in health and prevention settings

This training is sponsored by the UME's MarylandROPTA initiative in partnership with UMD's Department of Family Science.