The month of July marked the culmination of COPE’s 2020 Not my crime, still my sentence campaign, which this year focused on engaging young people impacted by parental imprisonment across Europe and highlighting their voices. The 2020 campaign set out two goals: to provide children opportunities to engage with the Recommendation in meaningful ways; and to motivate key stakeholders and decision-makers to commit to positive steps on behalf of children affected by parental imprisonment. Young people are being asked to draw their interpretation of one of the articles put forth in the Council of Europe Recommendation, and to explain why they chose that particular article, what it means to them and why it is important.
With these goals in mind, COPE network members have been holding workshops with young people and children affected by parental imprisonment in their communities to produce artwork in response to It’s Time to Act, the child-friendly version of Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)5 concerning children with imprisoned parents that was produced as part of COPE’s 2018 campaign. It’s Time to Act has been drafted, illustrated and edited by children and young people from 9 European countries.
Some of the successful outcomes of this year’s campaign include the Families Outside initiative in Scotland which introduced a prize incentive to encourage young children to engage deeply with the child-friendly Council of Europe Recommendation. They asked children and young people to choose an article from It’s Time to Act, write a short explanation as to why they chose to depict that article, then to draw their interpretations of the article and send in a photograph of the drawing.
As part of the campaign and in response to COPE’s May webinar, our Italian partners at Bambinisenzasbarre organised a follow-up webinar on June 25th entitled ‘Children and parents: We will stay connected’, which featured the head of Italy’s Department of Prison Administration, the National Guarantor of Childhood and Adolescence, the National Guarantor of the rights of persons detained or deprived of personal liberty, former COPE president Lucy Gampell and Bambinisenzasbarre’s President, Lia Sacerdote.
Other COPE members that have been participating in the campaign to date are Children Heard and Seen (England), Bambinisenzasbarre (Italy), Barnardo’s (N. Ireland), Exodus (Netherlands), Families Outside (Scotland), For Fangers Pårørende (Norway), Krits Foundation (Finland), Probacja (Poland), Solrosen (Sweden) and Time Matters (England). In total, 39 children have sent artwork and accompanying texts, from 8 different countries. Thank you to all members who have been active in the 2020 Not my crime, still my sentence social media campaign!