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On Wednesday, the Troup County Sheriff’s Office celebrated the graduation of three inmates from the Parenting Inside Out program.

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) is an evidence-based parenting education program for inmates. The program addresses the unique challenges facing criminal justice-involved parents and their children.

In a classroom setting, parenting coaches lead students through a cognitive-behavioral parent management skills course to help each parent develop a parenting plan specific to the needs of their family. 

The criminal-justice-involved adults learn skills they can put into practice to become better parents and role models for their children.

The class at the Troup County Jail is taught by Dr. Nicholas Griffin of ELVTD Youth and Mentoring. He serves as a parent coach at the jail with the permission of Sheriff James Woodruff and Captain Marty Reeves.

Dr. Griffin instructs men and women under the PIO curriculum and is proud to be the only program in the entire state of Georgia with this curriculum.

Three men graduated on Wednesday, including father and son James Bray and James Bray Jr. and Jeff Braswell.

The older Bray has since been released from jail but continues to work with his incarcerated son, Bray Jr., to complete the PIO program.

“We talked about generational problems, and we had a lot of honest conversations … We role-play, and we went through conversations on parenting, on how to act, how to be a parent, from inside, regardless of the amount of time that you’re sitting here right, or versus what’s going to happen once you get out right, and how to be a parent to your children when you out,” Griffin said.

Griffin said the program will continue after the inmates get out. They can get credit for their community service hours by participating in the ELVTD Youth and Adult Mentoring program that meets twice a week at the LaGrange Memorial Library.

“You get to hang out with your kids and play with them during the week, and you get community service hours,” Griffin said.

Griffin said they had some tough conversations in the 12-hour class.

“We were honest in there. We’ve got a Vegas rule: what happens in there, stays in there,” Griffin said. “They know they made some mistakes. I was on their tail in there, But it was honest love. It was trust. It was big love, and I am very proud of each and every one of them.”

Braswell said it helped him connect with his family on the outside.

“It’s just helping us get more of a line of communication with them to start preparing for the time that we have apart,” Braswell said. “The program not to try to, not to try to make up for all the time that you’re gone, but just start anew when you get out.”

“I think it’s a good program for the jail because we don’t have a whole lot of positive things going on in here, as far as learning and anything positive for inmates. This right here is something that may give people something to push for,” he said.