3rd March 2011
Eurochips has the honour and pleasure to announce that Ms. DOMINIQUE VERSINI, Ombudsman for children in France and Mr. CHRISTIAN Le ROUX, Representative of the Mediateur de la Republique, have both accepted our invitation and will attend Eurochips new art event March 15th, 2011 in Paris.
The Ombudsman for Children and the Mediateur de la Republique assist in helping to maintain the parental bond by assisting imprisoned parents and grandparents in seeing the children and negotiating extended visiting hours for imprisoned parents and their children.
This special one-day exhibition in the heart of Paris is open to the public and will be organised by Eurochips to raise awareness and exchange ideas on the subject of children with imprisoned parents. Paris-based Dutch artist Mieke Vase who has agreed to donate her time and talent to further the cause of the children will be presenting her works around the exhibition’s theme “Parents and Prison”, further drawings and art work from children from France, Switzerland, Italy, and other European countries will be exhibited.
The public event on 15th of March serves as Kick-off for the pan-Consortium partner meeting for COPING Project, funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme. COPING is an innovative, child-centred research project which explores the impact of a parent’s incarceration on children, their emotional and mental health needs, and their resiliency in coping with the experience. For 2 days more than 40 researchers, child specialists, and NGOs from 6 countries (Sweden, Germany, the UK and Romania, with pan-European partners in France and Switzerland) who will gather to discuss progress and next steps to advance the Coping project. If you are interested in learning more details about the Coping project we invite you to visit the dedicated website www.coping-project.eu
Professor Adele Jones of the University of Huddersfield in the UK will present the COPING project. She will eloborate on the COPING research strategy and the specific emphasis placed on knowledge obtained directly from children and young people. The project will commission surveys of 200 children in each country with an imprisoned parent. Non-governmental partner organizations will present some of the interventions already in place: German partner Treffpunkt features a special video about their own Father Child Group which they successfully run in Nuremberg prison and Swedish partner Riksbryggan will present wishes of the children on how to improve prison vists.
The event will take place between 16h00-18h30 at Hotel de l’Industrie, 4 Place Saint-Germain de Pres in Paris. The event will be officially opened by Ms. Dominique Versini at 16.10, after which there will be presentations by Ms. Adele Jones, Mr. Christian Le Roux and several partner organizations.