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Every Child Deserves a

Happy Birthday

Happier Birthdays brings relief, comfort and joy to children with incarcerated parents whose birthdays fall during a time of family crisis. Children receive  a powerful reminder that they are loved and in their parents’ hearts, even if they are not together in person.

Gifting Happiness

Happier Birthdays gives incarcerated parents a sense of dignity and an opportunity to act as a provider and nurturer to their children, in a situation where they have deprived of this. Enabling meaningful contact with family improves  in-prison behavior,  promote rehabilitation and reduces recidivism.

Providing Dignity

Happier Birthdays helps to strengthen family bonds, which is essential to children’s development, and a great deterrent from criminal behavior.  When families are connected, children have higher self esteem, and communities flourish.

Building Community

There are currently 2.7 million children in the United States with a parent in prison, while 10 million children have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their lives.

The knock on effects of incarceration to the entire family are devastating, leaving children with loss of emotional support,  poor self esteem, increased stresses on the separated the family unit, and a dramatic impact on family finances. These children, along with others in communities harmed by systemic inequities, are at high risk for the ‘school to prison pipeline’.
 

Birthdays can be especially distressing for these children. The pain of separation from the incarcerated parent, and the disappointment and shame of not receiving a gift, intensifies the impact on the child who has committed no crime.

​There are currently 2.7 million children in the United States with a parent in prison, while 10 million children have experienced parental incarceration at some point in their lives.

Strong families create strong communities and provide the backbone of an effective crime prevention strategy.



 

This enables parents and children to a share a positive experience of gift giving and receiving, helping to foster relationships, and provide the opportunity for a positive and nurturing family interaction. This will create a stronger family bond, as well as boost the child’s self esteem and reduce the pain and stigma of incarceration and family poverty. Strong family relationships are a powerful buffer against criminal behavior, and create the basis for an effective crime prevention strategy.

In line with Happier Birthday’s goal of creating strong family relationships, the gift is sent from the parent or care-giver, and not from an organization. Communication is enhanced with the inclusion of a birthday card with personal message from the parent, and a thank you card to be written in, and sent from the child.​

​Happier Birthdays brings relief, comfort and joy to children with incarcerated parents whose birthdays fall during a time of family crisis. Children receive  a powerful reminder that they are loved and in their parents’ hearts, even if they are not together in person.

​Happier Birthdays gives incarcerated parents a sense of dignity and an opportunity to act as a provider and nurturer to their children, in a situation where they have deprived of this. Enabling meaningful contact with family improves  in-prison behavior,  promote rehabilitation and reduces recidivism.

​Happier Birthdays helps to strengthen family bonds, which is essential to children’s development, and a great deterrent from criminal behavior.  When families are connected, children have higher self esteem, and communities flourish.

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