Directory of Research

All research and evidence on NICCO is reviewed using a Quality Assessment Tool (QAT) developed by the University of Huddersfield and Barnardo's.

Research and evidence is assessed in four key areas: Methodological Quality, Child-Centredness, Relevance to Policy and Strategy, and Relevance to Practice with offender's children. This ensures that items on the NICCO website are as useful as possible to academics, practitioners, commissioners and other professionals. For more information about the development of the QAT or to review research in order to list it on NICCO, please see the QAT webpage where you can download the Tool, Guidebook and a short step-by-step 'How To' document. Please contact us to submit quality assessed research on to NICCO.

Click on the icons to see a full list of items which have been awarded a standard icon or icon+ (for items which have scored particularly highly) in each key area:

Child-Centredness

Relevance to Policy

Methodological Quality

Relevance to Practice

31. The Effects of Parental Imprisonment on Children
This chapter of Crime and Justice: a Review of Research written by top researchers in the field starts on the premise that there is little known about whether parental imprisonment causes problems (known as risk factors) such as anti-social behaviour, offending, mental health problems, drug abuse, school failure and unemployment. This peer-reviewed research looks at parental imprisonment being the cause of these poor outcomes because of the strain of parent/child separation, stigma etc and...

32. Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents
This short report, from the International Association of Chiefs of Police is co written with the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office of Justice programmes. It can be learned from by police professionals anywhere. It notes that the arrest of a parent can have a significant impact on a child, whether or not the child is present at the time of the arrest. Over the past 20 years an increasing body of research has emerged into the effects of these events on...

33. Showcasing Women Centred solutions
This report, aimed predominately at commissioners and decision makers but accessible to any professional, looks at the need for and benefits of Women Centred Working. Going through the principles on which Women Centred Working is based the report looks at: - the safe, supportive, community based and accessible nature of the approach - holistic, tailored and multi agency ways of working - the concepts of empowerment and co-production - the nature of effectiveness, outcomes focused and...

34. Prospects for a Desistance Agenda
This report presents the findings from interviews with senior civil servants, politicians, commissioners and academics and analysis of government policy and statements in order to examine desistance as a concept in rehabilitative thought. It looks at where desistance stands as a concept within rhetoric, practice and policy. It then goes on to examine the barriers to desistance being adopted more widely which includes the difficulties of approaching desistance in a target driven way. The...
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35. Parental Incarceration and Child Trauma Symptoms in Single Caregiver Homes
This peer reviewed article refers to the impact of parental imprisonment on children in the USA but can be learned from by authors anywhere. It looks specifically at the trauma experienced by children of imprisoned parents including key processes such as visits and child care giving. The research utilises a comparison group of similarly disadvantaged, single care-giver families who do not have a parent in prison. The findings show that accounts of child trauma from both the care-giver and...
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36. Quality services: Ticking all the boxes
This is a short guide for professionals from APOF around evidence and quality when working with offenders' children and families. It introduces the need for and tensions around evaluating services which work with this group. It suggests different recognised approaches to measuring the impact that services have (such as the four pillars approach) and stresses the importance of measuring against soft targets as well as for key outcomes. There are some examples of measurement tools as...
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