On 9 and 10 June 2015, Dr. Aisling Parkes and Dr. Fiona Donson (also of St. Nicholas Trust, Cork) hosted an Exploratory Research Workshop on the Rights of Children affected by Parental Imprisonment at the School of Law, University College Cork. This event was funded by the Irish Research Council’s New Foundations Scheme 2014.
The main aim of this workshop was to facilitate effective knowledge exchange between academics and researchers with a common interest and specialist expertise in the area of children affected by parental imprisonment.
In particular, it aimed to achieve a number of specific objectives:
- to provide an important opportunity for sharing best practice within the European context in terms of current research on the rights of children with a parent in prison as well as the operation of services to support those children
- to provide a targeted opportunity for networking amongst all those invited concerning the exchange of research methodologies and findings
- to provide a forum for establishing a new interdisciplinary research network which will provide opportunities for academics and researchers working in the area to develop new research projects and collaborate to apply for future research funding particularly in the EU.
Furthermore, it is anticipated that there will be a number of outputs from this meeting which will include:
- An edited book with a collection of chapters from each of the workshop participants
- The establishment of an interdisciplinary research network to facilitate research in this area.
- Consider applications for further EU-funded Research Grants as well as other funding opportunities