WYFF, FOX Carolina highlight program that builds connections between incarcerated parents and their children

Riley’s Readers, a program crafted by Furman University’s Riley Institute Fellows, was featured on WYFF News 4 and on FOX Carolina News. Riley’s Readers enables incarcerated parents to record their voices as they read stories to their children. The recordable books are then shared with the inmates’ children to create a connection that wouldn’t otherwise exist. Parents are encouraged to include personal messages in addition to the storytelling. One father recorded, ‘”I love you. I just want you to know how amazing you are and how cool this is that I get to tell you that in a book.”’

More than 500 incarcerated parents have recorded stories on more than 1,500 books for children since the program launched in 2016 through a cohort of The Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative.