ABSTRACT

In a report published by the charities Action for Children, The Children’s Society and the NSPCC entitled In the eye of the storm: Britain’s forgotten children and families (Reed, 2012), these organisations argue that at the policy development level there is a continuing lack of attention paid to the issues faced by the children of prisoners. Their concern is echoed in a longitudinal academic study, Risk and protective factors in the resettlement of imprisoned fathers and their families (Losel et al., 2012: 7), which also recognises that ‘parental imprisonment can be one of the most critical life events for families (because) it can disrupt marital and family relationships, have negative outcomes for children, and aggravate material and social problems’. This chapter will further explore these concerns and argue that because this

group of children continues to be largely invisible in political and policy discussions, they are not having their needs adequately recognised or met through appropriate service provision. There has also been a relative lack of independent or academic research undertaken on the practical and emotional needs of this group of vulnerable children – an absence that has been noted by Shaw (1992), Boswell and Wedge (2002) and Murray and Farrington (2008). However, despite this seeming consensus that the needs of this vulnerable group are not being adequately recognised, policy-makers continue to address the issues in a piecemeal and unsatisfactory way. This happens despite the fact that the impact of family-member imprisonment

on a child has been well monitored for at least thirty years by voluntary and campaigning organisations such as Action for Prisoners’ Families (APF), Ormiston Children and Families Trust (OCFT), Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) and The Howard League for Penal Reform. It is largely as a result of persistent

campaigning by such groups that some progress, albeit limited, has been made in changing policy. The Change for Children (ECM) (DfES, 2004a) policy of the last Labour administration, for example, was the first to explicitly mention this vulnerable group of children and begin to consider an appropriate response in terms of service provision. Consequently, there have been some real improvements to family support within the prison system, although the extent of such support and its prioritisation is still at the discretion of individual prison governors. There have also been some examples of local authorities responding to this agenda by publishing policy guidelines and offering in-service training to the staff of schools, children’s centres and other relevant agencies, although this is not universal. The initial undergraduate and postgraduate training of professionals who plan to work in the community with families in a range of roles such as teachers, social workers, health visitor and family support workers includes some relevant training, although this is still largely an ad hoc process. It also needs to be recognised that many children of prisoners will have other

circumstances that contribute to their perceived vulnerability, such as a special educational need and/or a disability and may often be living in relative poverty, possibly as a consequence of the imprisonment of a parent. They will almost certainly fall into the Coalition government’s definition of living in a ‘troubled’ family (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2012). This chapter seeks to explore in more detail the way in which social attitudes

towards certain kinds of families viewed as inherently dysfunctional and problematic contribute to a deficit model that further disadvantages the children living in those families (Condry, 2007). It will examine what makes the children of prisoners particularly vulnerable and what the characteristics of that vulnerability are; but, importantly, it also asks why these vulnerabilities persist and what part is played by public perceptions of prisoners and their families. Due to limitations of space, the chapter focuses on the implications for children

attending school. In England, attendance at school is statutory for all children between the age of five and sixteen and this particular service can be used as something of a case study to illustrate how the needs of the children of prisoners are being met (or not) at a practical level. Many of the points discussed could be applied in other settings.