Literacy and parenting programmes in US prisons tend to be generic and skills-oriented, insensitive to pressing personal needs of parents and their distant children. This study reports on a prison-based family/art/literacy programme that attended to the local needs and interests of participants through a mural project. The article describes some of the social-cultural purposes that buttressed family engagement. It further explains how the project attended to idiosyncratic needs within a carefully structured, yet flexible, programme design. Six principles for contextualised, family/art/literacy programmes in prison are suggested. (Contains 1 note and 6 figures.)