On Tuesday 10 September 2024, members of the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) Action for Children and Families of Prisoners Network met in person for their fourth meeting of 2024.
Representatives from IPRT, Bedford Row, New Directions, Traveller Justice Initiative, Irish Council of Prisoners Overseas, Barnardos and Kinship Care attended the meeting alongside the new Irish Prison Service (IPS) Family Connections Officer, Marita Costigan.
Speaking about the new role as Family Connections Officer in the Irish Prison System, Marita shared her intentions to gather insights about the children and families of people in prison custody. Marita plans to collaborate with the Network organisations to find a way to consult directly with children and families, ensuring their voices are included in the work plan. It is hoped that a key outcome will be to improve visiting conditions and waiting areas and to create a Family Resource Centre-like setup in the waiting areas to better support families in need.
Some topics that arose from the discussion with the Network to inform the new role are:
Good practices within the Irish Prison Service:
- Trauma-informed approach to working with female prisoners in the Dochás Centre.
- Play Therapy: making it easier for children and parents to connect.
- In-cell telephones and being able to make and receive phone calls until 10pm.
- Sitting room visiting room in Limerick prison.
- Availability of notice boards in the waiting areas and visiting areas.
- Cost of living expenses: in some prisons St Vincent De Paul is assisting families with vouchers to help families impacted by having a family member in prison.
Barriers to children and families to maintain connections with their family in prison:
- The lack of time for visits: 20 minutes and phone calls – 6 minutes
- The cost of travelling to visits
- Time of visits with only one prison (Cork) providing evening visits.
- Access to information on how to request longer family visits.
- Lack of privacy at visits.
- Availability of toys/methods to enable parents in prison to interact with their children. Children become bored during visits.
- Availability of up-to-date information on the Irish Prison Service website.
- Phones unanswered.
- Poor contact between prisons and family members-Issues of GDPR.
- Children not being informed that their parent or family member is in prison.
- Stigma attached to having a parent in prison.
- Some families have complex situations such as children in Care.
- Parents knowing their rights to have access or information in relation to their children while they are in prison.
- Visiting areas not suitable for children with disabilities or with neurological issues.
- Rejection of community welfare payments for travel expenses when visiting a person in prison
Recommendation for change
- Increase the length of family visits and phone calls similar to other countries.
- Implement evening visits across all prisons.
- Security to be focused on the person in prison custody and not on the children and families coming to visit.
- Ensuring prison officers and prisons are consistent i.e. Training officers in the area of families and children.
- Supports services within the waiting and family visiting areas e.g. Having trained youth workers and a Family Resource Centre (FRC) style facility.
- Implementation of the sitting room facility/family visiting rooms in all prisons.
- Supporting people in prison through phone call and professional calls.
- Keeping the website updated & including an icon on the website linking families to support services.
- Key working system within the prison system that can link in and inform family members of what is happening concerning their family members in prison.
- Publicly available data collection to include where and by whom the children of prisoners are being cared for.
- Focus groups with family and children with a family member in prison to help improve conditions etc.
- Videos showing what it is like to come into a prison for a visit and displayed in the waiting areas of all prisons.
IPRT is delighted to see the new role of Family Connections Officer introduced after years of advocating for a family liaison role to be created through our work from our report Piecing it Together – Supporting Children and Families with a Family Member in Prison in Ireland and through working closely with the Irish Prison Service on the recruitment of the role. The role has huge potential to support the children and families of people in prison.
The recent recruitment of a National Family Connections Officer by the IPS enhances the capacity for further reform in the area of children and families of people in prison. In IPRT’s pre-Budget submission for Budget 2025, IPRT calls for further investment in a supporting programme of work which should include the improvement of visiting facilities, the finalisation of in-cell telephony and video booth rollout across the prison estate, and the expansion of the Family Links Programme nationally.
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