About Us
With the goal of long-term, healthy reunification and a permanent end to cycles of incarceration in families, Motherhood Beyond Bars (MBB) is the only organization in Georgia offering comprehensive support for incarcerated mothers, their infants, and caregivers.
Our Mission
Motherhood Beyond Bars supports women who experience pregnancy while incarcerated, their babies, and the caregivers who care for them during separation. Grounded in lived experience and authentic relationships, we engage early to preserve mother-baby bonds and support reunification and reentry. We help prevent future incarceration through diversion and changes in the policies, practices, and decisions that affect families. Together, this work strengthens families and helps break cycles of incarceration across generations.
Our Vision
We envision a future where mothers and babies are together, the sacredness of their bond is honored, and families are met with healing, care, and genuine support instead of unnecessary separation because of incarceration. We envision a world where safety is built by strengthening families, not separating them.
Our Story
Motherhood Beyond Bars (MBB) began working inside Georgia prisons in 2013 with the support of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) and a group of committed volunteers. Initially, all our programs took place inside women’s prisons, including childbirth education, postpartum support groups, baby showers, and prenatal yoga. Over time, the women in our groups began to share their heartbreak and concern for their children’s well-being and asked for our help supporting their infants and reuniting with their families when they left. Due to prison regulations set by the GDC, we were not permitted to have contact with family members, hindering our ability to develop a program. In 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all programs inside prisons, we planted the seeds for a new program of holistic family support, even if it meant we could no longer be in-person volunteers in the prison system.
Our Infant and Caregiver Program launched in January 2020, and we began enrolling infants in March. Since then, our program has enrolled almost every infant born in the Georgia prison system. We have forged new paths to support women and mothers inside prison, developed gender-responsive reentry services that center on family reunification and partnered with researchers on a groundbreaking study to better understand the impacts of incarceration on infants and families. MBB believes that “those closest to the problem are closest to the solutions” and actively seeks to be led by formerly incarcerated women and directly impacted families.
What Our Clients Say…
