"A Call to Action: Safeguarding New York's Children of Incarcerated Parents" provides a blueprint for criminal justice and children's services agencies and officials to work cooperatively to protect these children.

The report provides a comprehensive and unprecedented examination of what happens to children whose parents are in the criminal justice system and what government agencies and others can do concretely to improve these children's lives. The report offers a series of recommendations to reform both the criminal justice and children's service systems to be more sensitive and responsive to the needs of this group of vulnerable children. The recommendations promote cost savings through policies that achieve better outcomes.

The 85-page report, spearheaded by The Osborne Association's New York Initiative for Children of Incarcerated Parents, is the product of years of collaborative work between government agencies, including corrections, probation, parole, child welfare, health and mental health, education and other agencies, and community-based organizations. In particular, a Summit held last November brought together over 240 diverse stakeholders to begin developing the recommendations presented in the report.