Sometimes, the most incredible and innovative solutions can grow out of the most unlikely partnerships. In Washington State, the adult Department of Corrections had a mandate to reduce the prison population. With so many efforts to do this in a successful and sustainable way already tried (and often failed), they knew they had to do something different. Could the fact that 80% of their non-violent prison population were parents hold a key to success they hadn’t thought of before? They reached out to the Department of Early Learning to educate themselves about the impacts of incarceration on kids, and from that was born the Community Sentencing Alternative. Like peanut butter and jelly, these two unlikely partners came together to design a whole new system that has had impressive results for both their sectors.