The Children of Prisoners: Interventions and Mitigations to Strengthen Mental Health (COPING) project is the Children of Prisoners Europe network’s major accomplishment to date.
From January 2010 – 2012, the EU-research study co-founded by the EU Commission was a child-centred project, which investigated the resilience and vulnerability to mental health problems of children of imprisoned parents. It was the first time that a study of its size focused on the resilience and vulnerability of children of imprisoned parents throughout Europe.
The study covered 4 countries: Sweden, Romania, Germany and the UK. COPING research findings are aimed towards implementing European and international public policies in the view of enhancing the welfare of children. Support for children in accessing prisons and participating in prison visits, for example, is highly needed since only non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide such services. Moreover these methods vary greatly from one country to another. Often, imprisoned parents need assistance in communicating with their children within the prison environment as such a setting can create tension and anxiety within both parties.
The COPING project interviewed over 200 children with imprisoned parents in each country using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, to ascertain coping strategies and mental health problems for these young people, which were then compared with normative population samples. Smaller groups of children and parents were involved in in-depth qualitative interviews to explore the impact of parental imprisonment and support services available in greater detail. Interventions to support these families were comprehensively mapped throughout Europe by the research staff.
Children of Prisoners Europe (at that time Eurochips) participated in the project as a Pan-European umbrella organisation. Our mission consisted in disseminating information and prospecting further alliances to enhance the research. COPE Member Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), based in Switzerland, ensured that the findings had maximum impact on public policies by presenting the research at the UN level.
The study was spearheaded by a consortium of ten member organisations, comprising two from each country where the research was conducted. Each country group comprised a research institution and an NGO working with prisoners and their families.
In addition, the project had its own patron: Pr. Sir Patrick Stewart, Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield and internationally renowned actor, Stewart used his own childhood personal experience with domestic violence to campaign against this crime.
The project culminated in the end-of-project-conference entitled Coping with a Parent in Prison: An Agenda for Policy Reform in Brussels 2012. Children of Prisoners Europe organised the conference, with over 120 delegates in attendance, including key policy makers and practitioners. Find the full conference outcome report here.
To the left you will find the archived news articles from the duration of the project.
Summary report findings
Engaging over 1,500 children, care-givers, imprisoned parents and stakeholders across four focus countries (Germany, Romania, Sweden, UK) as active research participants, the final report of the COPING Project provides scientific, robust data on a scale not seen before in the field. Based on extensive interviews, statistical analysis, stakeholder discussions and mapping of current services, COPING is a great quantitative and qualitative leap forward and strengthens advocacy work for those in the field.
COPING also provides us with a new conceptual lens based on its “positive psychology approach”, while recognizing that children with imprisoned parents as a group are at a significantly greater risk of suffering mental health difficulties than children who do not have parents in prison. The study goes beyond seeing the children as being or having problems, and documenting adverse mental health outcomes; instead it explores how children cope with the experience of their parent’s imprisonment and the protective factors and support schemes which may enable children to be more resilient. This approach broadens the scope of current research and can have a crucial bearing on designing future interventions and support schemes.
COPING had as a primary focus the investigation of the mental health needs of children affected by parental incarceration, examining some of the more subtle dimensions of parental imprisonment, including the meanings that children attribute to the event, the experience of stigma and social isolation that may follow, the family dynamics before, during and after parental imprisonment and any impact these factors may have upon the child’s psychological health and well-being. COPING evidence clearly identifies stable and consistent support from a parent/caregiver as the key factor promoting children’s resilience and well-being while their parent is in prison. In all four focus countries, children’s resilience was enhanced by supportive relationships with grandparents and siblings. COPING research has also identified the importance of children sustaining and maintaining relationships with imprisoned parents, both mothers and fathers, as a crucial factor relating to children’s resilience. Positive environments are needed for children’s visits to prisons. COPING found restrictions on physical contact between the imprisoned parent and visitors to be one of the main causes of dissatisfaction for children and families and this was particularly difficult for younger children to understand.
The study recommends that imprisoned parents need to have their awareness raised about the importance of their role, the difficulties their children may face and the various positive coping strategies that the family can develop. Just as carers need support on the outside, the imprisoned parent should be offered support on parenting from within the prison through the provision of parenting groups and classes—as well as opportunities to execute their parenting role through quality contact with their child.
In addition, COPING found that children’s resilience is closely related to sharing information with them openly and honestly about what has happened and the reasons for their parent’s imprisonment, consistent with their age and maturity. Study findings also identified the importance of sharing information about the parent’s imprisonment with professionals, notably teachers. The research highlighted the potential for schools to contribute to the emotional well-being of children of prisoners, particularly by supporting the child and helping reduce bullying and stigma. While COPING found that a range of services and interventions exist in focus countries, these are not often targeted towards the needs of children of prisoners; services are patchy, uncoordinated and accessible by only a relatively small number of children. Nevertheless COPING found examples of good practice supporting children of prisoners and their families developed by NGOs across the four countries. COPING underscores the need for better information about services, however: evidence demonstrated that some families of prisoners were unaware of organizations specifically designed to support them. These families reported that they would have welcomed the opportunity to receive support, particularly regarding what to expect when visiting prison.
COPING formulated clear recommendations based on the data, from making criminal justice systems from arrest to imprisonment take account of the needs of the children affected, to increasing public awareness (including the role of the media) and policy recognition of children coping with parental incarceration. It stresses the need for campaigners and researchers to be aware of possible negative repercussions of their efforts to raise the public profile of children of prisoners: a careful balance is needed between emphasising their needs and preventing further stigmatization.