For over fifteen years, MATCH has been providing parenting education, support, visits, transportation assistance, special events, and more to incarcerated mothers. We are the only program in the state of North Carolina and the nation that brings children to visit their mothers in a home-like setting within the prison.
In April 1991, the United Methodist Women in North Carolina held a conference on incarcerated women that inspired and educated them to be in ministry with incarcerated women and their children. They were introduced to a program called Prison PATCH (Parents And Their Children), a ministry that began in 1984 by the Office of Creative Ministries of the United Methodist Church and United Methodist Women in Missouri. A task force representing United Methodist Women, women from other denominations and woman's clubs, and prison officials began meeting to explore the possibility of implementing a program modeled after Prison PATCH at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women (NCCIW) in Raleigh. In 1992 Prison MATCH of North Carolina, Inc., was established as a 501(c)3 to provide the following services and resources:
- To educate and increase public awareness of the situation of children with an incarcerated mother.
- To advocate for increased and continuing services and resources to meet the needs of children of incarcerated mothers.
- To help facilitate appropriate positive relationships between Prison Administration, staff, mothers, children, and caregivers.
- To offer an alternative non-threatening, child-friendly visiting area at the prison.
- To provide counseling for inmate-mothers on child development issues.
- To improve positive parenting skills of inmate-mothers through educational programming.
- To assist with the transportation needs of children to NCCIW.
- To offer holiday programming for all children of inmate-mothers.
- To support and promote for progressive correctional systems for women in prison.
The MATCH Center was built in 1995 as part of a new building on the grounds of the prison, and was dedicated and began hosting visits in October, 1995. The center is a non-threatening, homelike environment where visits with the mother and her children occur. The center includes a living area, dining area, fully equipped kitchen, two restrooms, and two offices for MATCH staff. The prison provides MATCH with a monthly grocery allowance to purchase food for the mothers to prepare a meal, snacks and birthday cakes for their children.
Because all who are involved with our organization have normally called us MATCH, the Board of Directors voted in 2010 to simplify and clarify our official name by changing it to Mothers and Their Children, Inc. We are still lovingly called MATCH.
