top of page
The Garrison & Friends Project is
fiscally sponsored by
Texas Prisons Community Advocates
The team behind Garrison's Visitation Day and the developing series come from many different walks of life. Read on to find out what brought them to this project and how their unique experiences contributed toward our goal of helping children.
Jessica Dickerson
Co-Founder/Project Director
Children are such a gift! Having the opportunity to entertain them, introduce new ideas to them, and help them grow is a privilege. When I wrote the Rosebud series, the stories developed naturally to cover many of the common childhood issues like fear, identity, insignificance, and learning to follow directions. I was looking for an illustrator, and my friend, Jim, was willing to give it a go. I will be forever grateful! That first book has led to many other collaborations, which brought us to Garrison and his friends.
For the last three years, I have been dedicating my time to changing prison conditions in Texas prisons. Through this work, I realized that all of society is affected by incarceration, but most impacted are our children. As Jim and I talked about the effect of incarceration on children, we realized we needed to start at the beginning. How do you talk to kids about incarceration? Thank goodness Juliana was willing to help! Her contribution takes a children's story and makes it a textbook, a revelation for practical ways to talk to kids about incarceration. According to the Vera Institute, more than 5 million children have an incarcerated parent. Mass incarceration is a blight on American society, and it is time, for the sake of our children, for all of society to come to the table for a healthy conversation about the true "cost" of incarceration on our most vulnerable societal members. - Jessica Dickerson
Jessica is a storybook designer, editor, author, and advocate. You can see more of her work under the Character Traits tab and on Texas Prisons Community Advocates' website under the #I'mAffected campaign and on the Law of Parties campaign page.
Jim Guevara
Co-Founder/Project Director
I created the Garrison and Friends series with a couple of things in mind: I wanted kids to know that they are not alone in their struggles and that they are dearly missed and constantly thought about by their parents. Also, I wanted to remind the incarcerated parents of their sacred duty to help and guide their children and to acknowledge the great wisdom they still have to offer. I did not do this alone. Jessica, my friend and publisher, stressed the magnitude of this problem and encouraged me all along the way. Juliana taught us the importance of the caretaker's role and provided the expertise we desperately needed. My friend Nanon reminded me that children of all colors needed to be represented and is helping to write the second upcoming book. We all have our unique skills and perspectives. Without these people, the Garrison & Friends series would not exist. Garrison has his friends. These are mine. - Jim Guevara
Jim is an artist, illustrator, and writer. You can see more of his work under the Character Trait Books tab, Educational Books tab, and on the Art by Incarcerated Artists tab.
Juliana Perez LCSW, LCDC
Advisory Committee Member
I was contacted because I was referred to as an “expert” in the field of working with families of the incarcerated. However, the experts are the children like Garrison and Friends and their families who have lived the experience. The universe “set me up” for thirty years to work with these families. I was introduced to the jail system first as a volunteer, then hired as a program coordinator, then left to complete graduate school, returned as a volunteer, and currently am a contract parenting education facilitator. As Nanon says, the children of the incarcerated are a silent, invisible population. Parental incarceration has now been proven as an Adverse Childhood Event (ACE) that can have lifelong negative consequences. With some help, these families can heal and thrive in society. We have much to learn from these families. They inspired me to go to college and earn a master’s degree in social work. I hope Garrison & Friends will give voice to the experiences of many children and families that can give hope and healing to others. - Juliana Perez
Juliana is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor (LCDC), and contributor to the first Garrison & Friends book. She has worked in many social work settings: jail, at a children’s shelter, adult psychiatric unit, Indian reservation, immigrant detention centers, with military families, and foster/adopt families. She was a program coordinator for nationally recognized county jail programs Mothers And Their Children (MATCH) and Papas And Their Children (PATCH). These programs allowed incarcerated parents to earn weekly contact visitation with their children. Her article “Inmate Parenting Contact Visitation Programs -Why Implement Them?” was published in the American Jails Magazine Nov/Dec. 1996 issue. She has received local and state awards for her work in social services. She is available for consulting, staff development, conference workshops/training and can be reached via email at japerezconsult@aol.com
Nanon Williams
Advisory Committee Member
Being a kid with an incarcerated parent, I felt like I was on an island, avoiding any moral announcement to others that might explain my situation. In other words, I did not know how to express the growing sense of isolation in me because I did not know there could be any listeners that could readily identify with me. While working with a group of sixth graders in Syracuse, New York, for the entire school semester, by exchanging letters, I learned that almost all the kids expressed that they knew someone in prison, a dad, mom, uncle, brother, sister, or family friend within the neighborhood. The kids themselves did not realize how very much they had in common. To keep the silence from repeating, I realized that there had to be a creative doorway for them to express what was unsaid. What is left unsaid can be quite a lot. Garrison's story is not an isolated situation, and the narrative of this story offers a tool for discussion not just for a child, parent, teacher, or counselor but for kids themselves to identify with other kids so they won't feel like they are trapped on an island like I was. Through this book, we offer a journey of hope, where the listener becomes the speaker, and the speaker can learn to leave the island so no one feels alone. - Nanon Williams
Nanon is an author and metal worker. You can see more of his work under the Books by Incarcerated Writers tab and at Underground Metal Worker. Nanon also author's the next Garrison and Friends book, so keep checking back with us as he helps children through the anger and isolation they often face.
bottom of page