The Role of Schools in Assisting Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison – findings from the COPING Project

Children who experience parental incarceration are vulnerable to facing poor outcomes in terms of their mental health and education. Schools have the potential to provide a point of stability during a parent's prison sentence, thereby assisting children affected by parental imprisonment to remain resilient. This paper will present school related findings from COPING, a three year pan-European research project that investigated the impact of parental imprisonment on children in the UK, Romania, Germany and
Sweden. It will focus on good practice points for schools regarding how they can most effectively support children of prisoners by drawing on the views expressed by young people and families affected by imprisonment, as well as professionals who work in a school setting. Young people placed a high value on support from trusted school staff
that had a general awareness of issues relating to parental imprisonment as well as knowledge of their own particular situation. This paper will therefore stress the need for all school staff to be trained with regard to the impact upon children of parental imprisonment. The paper will also include a discussion of workshops involving young
people in Secondary education that were designed to enable them to think about the impact of parental imprisonment.