Senate committee reviews H.219 to expand Lund’s Kids Apart parenting program to men’s facility

The Vermont Senate Committee on Institutions on March 18, 2025, heard testimony on H.219, a bill to codify and expand Lund’s Kids Apart parenting program and to fund a pilot of the program at a men’s correctional facility; witnesses described services for incarcerated parents and their children and said a funding source has been identified in the House.

Ken Chats, interim CEO of Lund, told the committee, "we really appreciate the partnership that we've had with the Department of Corrections to provide currently a family support program for the women in the women's correctional facility in Chittenden County," and said Lund seeks to make the existing program whole and expand it to a men’s facility.

The bill matters, proponents said, because parent-child contact is limited for many incarcerated people and because maintaining family ties can affect child wellbeing and reentry outcomes. "The goal of this program is to reduce the impact, the traumatic impact on a child when a parent is incarcerated," said Jess Kellen, Kids Apart coordinator at Lund.

What the program does

Witnesses described Kids Apart services now operating in women’s facilities and proposed to mirror those services for men. Kim LaRoche, director of parent-child center services at Lund, said services include orientation and individualized intake for…