The Transformative Leadership Program is divided into two intensives that occur during the summer and school year. Each intensive brings together cohorts of 25 youth with incarcerated parents to focus on inner healing, personal development, education and organizing community-action projects. The curriculum aims to improve mental health, develop political and self-awareness and foster artistic expression through visual arts, poetry, digital media, and other mediums for creative outlets.

Participants gain a deeper understanding of the history of the prison system, including how policies and practices have led to a system that has shaped their individual and collective experience. We facilitate a series of workshops on processing the challenges, grief, trauma and compassion that may come with having an incarcerated parent. During and after these intensives, youth facilitate workshops and lead collaborations with community-based organizations. We also provide mentoring, weekly after school drop in space, and support with higher education or creating a plan for after graduating high school. The summer, fall, and spring intensives are all paid opportunities for youth.

SUMMER INTENSIVE

Our Summer Intensive and Sister Legacy Program—two interwoven initiatives that provide healing-centered leadership development for girls and young women aged 14–18 with incarcerated parents or loved ones. These young people face overlapping barriers, including trauma, grief, systemic disconnection, and limited access to mental health support. Our programs offer a structured, nurturing environment rooted in abolitionist values, Black feminist pedagogy, and trauma-informed care. The 6-week Summer Intensive brings together up to 20 girls for a paid, arts-based program focused on political education, emotional processing, and community action. Weekly themes include “Transformative Justice,” “Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” and “Design Thinking for Abolition,” alongside guest-led workshops on mindfulness, reproductive justice, and entrepreneurship. Participants engage in sister circles, art-making, writing, and field trips that foster creative expression and collective healing.

Sister Legacy

Sister Legacy is the newest element of Sisters Unchained’s Transformative Leadership Program. This college access and career exploration initiative provides young sisters with college and career exploration, preparation, and support, including ongoing mentorship, application assistance, campus tours, and career guidance. The Sister Legacy Program includes a weekly speaker series where participants will experience a diverse lineup of phenomenal women/non-binary leaders making changes in their respective fields and redefining success. We aim to support our youth in articulating their dreams and goals for their future and helping them produce a plan for how to achieve them. All 15 juniors and seniors who participate in this program receive a stipend.

The Sister Legacy program aims to disrupt the cycle and interrupt the negative trajectory associated with having an incarcerated parent by providing:

Consistent, Nurturing Support: Offering stable mentorship relationships to counterbalance the uncertainty caused by a parent’s incarceration.

Safe Spaces for Healing and Growth: Facilitating group discussions, peer support circles, and emotional wellness activities to help young women process their experiences and build resilience.

Building Academic and Career Pathways

College and Career Readiness: We mitigate existing academic and economic barriers by providing structured guidance on college applications, financial aid, vocational programs, career exploration, and academic success.

Extracurricular Exposure: By connecting them to various hobbies, clubs, and activities, participants expand their interests, build confidence, and develop new skills critical for lifelong success.

Cultivating Community Involvement and Political Awareness

Leadership and Action Projects: By designing and executing community-based projects, participants gain a sense of agency, learn organizing skills, and positively impact their neighborhoods.

The Sister Legacy Program is a two-year program for Junior and Senior members of Sisters Unchained. As Juniors, young sisters automatically become a part of the Sister Legacy program and are assigned a mentor.

ABOUT OUR TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

Here are a few goals/highlights of The Transformative Leadership Program curriculum:

  1. A deepened understanding and critical analysis of the prison industrial complex, including how systems of incarceration have shaped our individual and collective experiences, especially as women of color.

  2. Support individual journeys towards healing and personal transformation.

  3. Study historical and present movements led by Black people, and Brown people.

  4. Explore multiple mediums of art and creative expression.

  5. Become involved/take leadership in Sisters Unchained campaigns and advocacy.

The Transformative Leadership Program is specifically for young women and girls, ages 14-18, with an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated parent. Participants must live in Massachusetts. Our summer intensive takes place every year from July to August.

More about our curriculum:

Sisters Unchained facilitates political education workshops that teaches about the prison industrial complex, centers the voices of Black and Brown freedom fighters, and is rooted in principles of transformative justice. We educate youth about different liberation movements throughout the country led by Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Our internal education during programming strengthens our actions of solidarity in our communities. We aim to support the leadership of daughters affected by parental incarceration to engage in art, advocacy and organizing.

Above all, we support our sisters/siblings by identifying tools for emotional wellness and creating intentional space to process losing or loving an incarcerated parent. Often, parental incarceration is just one out of many traumatic experiences that young people are forced to endure. Thus, our curriculum has a significant focus on self-love, mental health, and exploring various mediums of artistic expression. The objective of our curriculum is to collectively engage one another through the exchange of historical and cultural knowledge, skills, stories and lived experiences that will honor multiple paths towards healing, empowerment, and self-determination.