Evaluation Report

Children of prisoners: Supporting families affected by parental offending

Croydon Conference Centre

16th March 2015

Barnardos together with London Borough of Croydon held a multi- agency conference on 16th March 2015 to raise awareness of the needs of Children who are affected by parental imprisonment and offending. The conference was oversubscribed and was attended by over 90 practitioners and managers from a large number of organisations who work with families in Croydon. The event was opened by Catherine Doran, chair of Croydon’s safeguarding board and closed by Ian Lewis, Croydon’s Director of children services.

During the morning session there were four presentations by services and organisations who work with children and families.Delegates saw two very thought provoking video films.

The presentation slides from the conference can be downloaded from www.i-hop.org.uk

These include contributions from:-

Polly Wright i-hop’s strategic development officer who talked about the research and evidence of the affects that parental offending have on children and families well- being.

Susanne Page from Barnardos Essex project spoke on how Children centres can support families .

Andrea Packer spoke about her work as a Learning Partnership Coordinator in Somerset where the schools

developed a champion model to support children and families.

Yvonne Dawes and Ingrid Belnavis from Families Apart gave a presentation on how they have developed a specialist service for families in the Borough of Kingston

Three workshops took place in the afternoon which delegates could choose to attend they focused on

·  Identifying and supporting families

·  Raising awareness and developing skills

·  Strategic responses

The aims of the workshops were to consider in the light of the presentations, the needs of children and families in Croydon who were affected by parental imprisonment and offending and how they could be best supported.

Details of the workshops and their key messages can be downloaded from www.i-hop.org.uk

Attendance

A total of 83 delegates registered their attendance at the event

Sector agency
Education including schools and education support services / 22
Voluntary sector / 9
Health / 4
Barnardos / 5
LB Croydon / 32
Probation/CRC / 4
Nurseries and Children Centres / 4
YOS / 4

Overall evaluation

52(62%) delegates returned their evaluation form. The following data is based on their responses

96% of the delegates rated the event good or very good

52% rated the event as very good

44% rated the event as good

6% rated the event as poor

Delegates attributed the following aspects of the event as contributing to its success

v  Good presentation from speakers from differing perspectives

v  Lots of information

v  A topic that they had little information or had ever thought about

v  Raising their awareness

Outcomes / How far outcomes are achieved (where 1 is not achieved and 5 is fully)
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
Raised awareness about incidence of children being affected by parental offending / 1 / 3(6%) / 20(38%) / 28((53%)
Raised awareness about the impact of parental offending / 1 / 3(6%) / 24(46%) / 25(48%)
Provided the opportunity to inform the development of a local authority wide implementation plan / 8(15%) / 30(58%) / 12(23%)
Provided opportunity for multi-agency networking / 9(17%) / 24(46%) / 18(34%)

Some of the comments received about the event

“I have gained information that will inform the work that I do with practitioners” ( early help provider)

“ very informative and lots to discuss and take forward” (social worker)

“ Excellent opportunity to share practice , raise awareness and reflect about services and asking key questions “ ( early years manager)

“really interested in topic- not previously given it much thought” ( keyworker)

“ excellent speakers” ( health worker)

“ powerful presentations on vital often overlooked issue that deeply impacts on children” ( early help advisor)

“ helped me to see the organisations that could help children in my school” ( teacher)

“ so much information that I was unaware of so has enlightened me on the issues in Croydon” ( Early help manager)

How the event could be improved

There were some suggestions as to how the event could be improved which included having a contribution from the probation service and representation from the Police and judiciary. One delegate commented that the workshops were too large and another thought that the film was too emotive to show before the lunch break. One delegate thought that the “training” could have been shorter and one delegate would have liked to have seen more social workers from the children in need and MASH teams attending. Another delegated suggested that she would have liked to hear more from children about their experiences.

Suggestions for further actions

The majority of delegates (90%) thought that there should be further training and awareness raising in their services, 11 delegates specifically mentioned in their evaluation that they would like to attend Hidden Sentence training and 5 delegates mentioned that they would raise the issues at staff/team meeting. There was also interest in developing the champion model in schools.

“Will discuss with staff our meetings” ( health worker)
“ excellent we need more training opportunities” ( YOS worker)
“ Hidden sentence training should be made available for all social workers and professionals” ( social worker)
“ I will pass information onto Pastoral support network in my school” ( primary school worker)

“we need to incorporate CAPI into early years training” (early years worker)

Staff need more information ( Hidden Sentence) and posters and leaflets ( Children centre worker)

“ Look at where we can raise awareness with schools we work in” (teacher )