Campaign 2024
Context
As outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), all children have the fundamental right to maintain contact with their family (Article 9). Article 3 underscores that the child’s best interests should be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them. Upholding these rights is crucial for supporting the emotional and psychological well-being of children with an imprisoned parent, as it fosters resilience and preserves family bonds.
Children’s rights lay at the heart of the Game with Mum & Dad campaign. This year, COPE invites its members participants to join the second edition of ‘Game with Mum & Dad’, the first international football campaign for children with a parent in prison. This initiative, consisting of sports games held on prison grounds between children and their imprisoned parents, was first pioneered by COPE member Bambinisenzasbarre in Italy and has since been carried out by five further partners across a total of five countries — Families Outside (Scotland, UK), Relais Enfants Parents Romands (Switzerland), Probacja (Poland), Generalitat de Catalunya, Department of Justice (Spain) and PACT (England, UK). It is founded on the COPE network’s shared values of child safeguarding, child participation, non-discrimination and gender equality.
Why Does It Matter?
This awareness-raising campaign goes beyond hosting one-off events that offer families a temporary moment of connection. In addition to this, it aims to change how prisons are perceived, to break down barriers, to humanise the prison environment and embed the perspective of children with imprisoned parents within pentientiary systems. It seeks to boost momentum on the national and international level among decision-makers.
In the short term, these sport games—often football, sometimes other sports— provide opportunities for children to enjoy shared family moments in a less restrictive context. They help destigmatise imprisonment through shared moments of fun with peers, parents and caregivers while increasing awareness among prison staff about the benefits of strengthening family bonds.
In the long term, the campaign will serve as leverage for greater advocacy at the European and international level, urging decision-makers to consider and implement the systemic change required to meet the needs of children with an imprisoned parent. With this campaign, we hope to inspire key actors to become champions for change — to recognise their own roles and responsibilities in advancing children’s rights to maintain contact with a parent in prison. We hope it will generate an overall increased awareness of the potential impact of parental imprisonment on children and how prison services can play a part in strengthening the all important child-parent bond.
The campaign will be an opportunity to foster greater trust and to strengthen partnerships between COPE members and prison services, ministries of justice, and other entities. Ultimately, the campaign aims to dismantle the notion of prison as merely a place of confinement, encouraging an understanding of prison as a place of inclusion.
Get Involved!
Want to make a difference? Join us in the ‘Game with Mum & Dad’ campaign! Learn more by visiting the campaign website or emailing us at contact[@]gamewithmum-dad.eu.Creating long-lasting change takes time. Donating to Game with Mum & Dad will help ensure the campaign’s sustainability, allowing COPE and partners to continue effecting real and lasting change for children with a parent in prison.
If you wish to donate to this campaign, please do so here.