Too often, young people have been the silent victims of the justice system.
As our prison population gets bigger, so do the numbers of young people living with a parent incarcerated. They form one of the most overlooked groups in our society, with little known about their needs or experiences. That leads to them being forgotten about when it comes to policy-making and support networks, or even worse, dangerous assumptions, rhetoric and stereotypes formed about them.
This episode of Let’s Talk Social Work is dedicated to helping to bring this topic out of the shadows. With a growing body of research now being committed to spotlighting the lived experiences of children with a parent in prison, we’re proudly doing our bit to promote this issue to social workers.
As with any professionals, social workers may well meet young people through the course of their practice who are experiencing life with a parent in prison. This discussion will explore ways to support and build trust with young people as well as outline many of the challenges and barriers they might face, based on first-hand accounts from a recent study carried out in Australia.
Host Jonny Adamson is joined by one of the authors of the study, Associate Professor Catherine Flynn, Head of Social Work at Monash University, Maia Ihemeje, founder of Yung Prodigy, a youth-led organisation focused on mobilising young people affected by parental and kinship incarceration, and Dr Lorna Brookes, founder of Time-Matters UK and Associate Professor at Liverpool John Moores University.
They also discuss what could change at policy level to improve the lives of children living with a parent in prison and why this group has seemingly gone unnoticed in both the UK and Australia for so long.
Our thanks to James Ede at BeHeard Productions for producing the episode.
Supporting children living with a parent in prison: Learning from young people (British Journal of Social Work) - https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article/56/3/1139/8340010
Yung Prodigy - https://yungprodigy.org/
Time Matters UK - https://www.timemattersuk.com/
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