Professor Jane Payler writes about her research with an often forgotten group of children in this post, which is though-provoking and powerful.
Imagine yourself in this situation. You are seven-years-old. Police bang noisily on the front door shouting, ’Open up! Police!’ They force the door open. Your mum is crying and your dad shouting, angry and afraid. The police put your dad in handcuffs and take him away. Everyone in the family is now crying, shocked and upset. You will later hear that dad has gone to prison, but you don’t know where that is or when you will see your dad again. You have seen prisons on television programmes. They do not look like nice places. How do you feel? What effect might this have on you?
In the UK, it is estimated that 312,000 children and young people each year have a parent in prison. It’s an estimation because no official figures are kept on how many people currently serving a prison sentence have children outside, who these children are or whether they are receiving support. Although new prisoners once in prison may be asked if they have children, not every prisoner wants to give that information and its accuracy isn’t checked. Not all the reasons for this are known, but often family relationships are complicated, and prisoners may be afraid that their children will be taken into care. When a parent is sent to prison, there are no structures in place nationally in the UK to immediately offer support or advice to the family and children left behind at home. Yet we know that those families suffer stigma, financial difficulties, housing problems, anxiety and mental health issues, to name but a few. And as a mother with a partner in prison told us,
A child’s way of looking at things is different to an adult. We can process things differently because we understand it.… it’s almost like you know when you lose a friend or you lose a mum or something like that, it’s almost like another loss, like a death, because they’ve gone.
Dr Victoria Cooper, Dr Stephanie Bennett and I are researching the needs and experiences of children and young people with a parent in prison. We are evaluating a new service in Worcestershire, Families First, established by the charity YSS and funded by Worcestershire County Council, to provide support to such families. Part of our remit is to highlight the extent of need for such services nationally. Our research is a mixed methods study incorporating: an online survey; interviews with stakeholders (police, housing, schools, early help practitioners, other organisations dealing with similar issues) and practitioners; Freedom of Information requests; and in-depth interviews/activities with families. We aim to foreground the voices of those children and young people most affected by such experiences. Participating children are aged between seven and fifteen years, although families in the case studies with which Families First work include children as young as two years.
The children and young people in our research have left a mark on us for their stoicism and wisdom in the face of great difficulties as they try to make sense of and cope with what life has dealt them. As one twelve-year-old whose father was in prison reflected about parents committing crimes,
What were they thinking?… when they did it? Sometimes I don’t think they think about what they’re doing, but other times I think they just don’t care’…. ‘Dad wanted to impress his friends, but his friends are stupid. They’re all, like, a bit daft. I don’t know why he does it.
We are now approaching the later stages of analysis and writing up of the two-year study and expect to report in the New Year. We have so far shared our research at conferences in Worcester, at the Open University and in Florida. You can also read more about these Forgotten Families here. Look out for our forthcoming report and our seminar on 1st Feb 2023 at the Children’s Research Centre.
