CNA Staff, Feb 20, 2025 /
06:00 am
A prison nursery program in Missouri that has drawn support from local Catholic leaders is offering mothers a supportive “family-oriented” place to bond with their newborn babies while still incarcerated.
The nursery program at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center (WERDCC) in Vandalia, Missouri, is offering “a great opportunity to reach a lot of moms” who might otherwise be separated from their very young children, program manager Kim Perkins told CNA.
Perkins said the facility came about after the Missouri Legislature in 2022 passed a bill creating the “Correctional Center Nursery Program,” which “requires the Department of Corrections to establish a correctional center nursery” in at least one of the state’s women’s prisons by July 2025.
The program “allows eligible inmates and children born to them while in the custody of the department to reside together in the institution for up to 18 months post-delivery,” the measure said.
Perkins told CNA that the program she oversees is the only one in the state. “We have two female facilities in Missouri, and all of our pregnant moms stay at our institution at WERDCC,” she said.
“The state government funds the program, which is amazing, because most programs that exist like this are not fully funded by the state but by donations,” she said.
“We have a great opportunity to reach a lot of moms and not worry about if we’re going to have enough diapers from month to month.”
Catholic leaders back nursery program
The nursery initiative has received backing from the Missouri Catholic Conference. The group noted earlier this month that it had supported the legislation establishing the program in 2022.
Father Louis Dorn, a priest with the Diocese of Jefferson City who has done prison ministry for decades, told the Catholic Missourian that year that he has seen the toll taken on mothers who are separated from their newborn babies.
“Having been chaplain to incarcerated women for many years, I know that one of the most painful things for them is the separation from their newborn infants,” he said, calling it “demoralizing and harmful to their mental health.”
Perkins told CNA that the specialized facility — which looks more like a comfortable hospital or birthing center than a prison — offers bonding opportunities for mothers and “time to focus on themselves and their baby.”
She noted that there are requirements for mothers participating in the program, most specifically that they have 18 months or fewer left on their sentence. The crimes for which they were incarcerated, meanwhile, cannot have been dangerous felonies, sex crimes, or crimes against children.
“Once they’re cleared, we can move them over to our facility,” she said. “We have seven rooms that are designated for moms and babies, but we can hold 14. They can double up if we need to. They’re pretty big rooms.”
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“We have nice beds in there, baby beds, rockers, changing tables, the whole nine yards,” Perkins said.
Mothers in the program go to a local hospital to have their babies, she said, after which they return to the facility, which offers a variety of services geared toward helping mothers and small babies.
“We offer parenting classes,” she said. “We have Early Head Start coming in. We’re going to have a nutritionist come in. We’re looking to get WIC [the supplemental nutrition program].”
“We have programs to help them with the basics — with life skills, how to parent, how to do that well, watching their mental health,” she said. The facility also offers substance abuse classes if the mothers are recovering addicts.
Also living in the facility, Perkins said, are “caregivers,” fellow inmates who also must be cleared to participate in the program.
“If mom has to go to treatment, we have a daycare set up, and our caregivers work for the daycare and take care of the babies,” she said.
“They record everything — when they change a diaper, if they feed the baby, if the baby was fussy.”
There are several other prison nursery programs throughout the United States. Numerous other countries, meanwhile, make efforts to keep incarcerated women with their young children if possible.
In 2018, Pope Francis visited a facility in Rome that keeps children with their mothers who might otherwise be separated because of imprisonment.
The facility “allows mothers to accompany and take their children back to school and to carry out activities useful for learning a profession, in view of future reintegration into the world of work and society,” the Vatican said at the time. Francis has regularly visited prisons and emphasized the need to reach out to prisoners and minister to them.
Perkins, meanwhile, said the Missouri facility is intentionally designed to create a family environment for the women and children living there.
“It’s a different atmosphere,” she said “It’s very family-oriented. The ladies are very supportive of each other. It’s a nice, secure place. And we’ve tried to make it that way.”
Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.
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