Videos

With the child’s best interests paramount, Papa Plus is a positive solution-based parent support model to enhance the capacity of prison staff/practitioners in contact with children who have a parent in prison and their fathers. It offers concrete ways on how to strengthen the child-parent bond and minimize risks, while providing fathers with the means to support their child’s development. Papa Plus also helps fathers prepare for reintegration into the home and offers ways for accessing further help, advice and support as a parent from cross-sectoral agencies.

Children who have an imprisoned parent may experience anxiety, shame, low self-esteem. Sharing important moments, events and experiences may not be possible because their father/mother is far away. This can cause a young child to feel alone and confused.

Given that over 800,000 children in the EU have a parent in prison, legal and judicial awareness of the issues facing children of prisoners and their rights is of paramount importance. In many cases, the most important stage of a family’s involvement with the criminal justice system will be at the trial and sentencing phase, where the decision to commit a parent to prison can have far-reaching, negative consequences for children, including, in some instances, the latter being taken into care. Many countries, however, do not take sufficient account of the impact of parental imprisonment on children or of the specific circumstance and needs facing children of prisoners.

Within the Council of Europe countries, an estimated 2.1 million children have a parent in prison.[1] In the words of Ilina Taneva, Secretary to the Council of Europe’s Council for Penological Co-operation, that is equivalent to the population of a small country. These 2.1 million children often suffer as the result of their parents’ conflict with the law. All stages of the criminal justice process, from the initial arrest to resettlement, have the potential to impact negatively on these children’s lives.

Alain Bouregba, co-fondateur et ancien président du réseau COPE, président de la Fédération des Relais Enfants Parents, analyse la façon dont l’incarcération altère la relation enfant-parent.
1 – Comment l’incarcération altère la conduite de l’individu ?
2 – Comment l’incarcération altère la relation enfant-parent ?
3 – Comment atténuer les effets nocifs de l’incarcération sur la relation enfant-parent ?

This video briefly spotlights some of the voices of the estimated 800,000 children with imprisoned parents in the European Union. Created by Families Outside UK in partnership with COPE, the video briefly explores the myriad perspectives, sometimes contradictory, always their own, of children with an imprisoned parent.