The Essex steering group for families affected by imprisonment brings together key agencies in Essex, with the aim of highlighting the issues faced by these families, sharing expertise and information amongst professionals, and promoting partnership work.
The group was set up by staff from Barnardo's Children's Centres in North East Essex, who had been developing their work with families affected by imprisonment. By using existing links with partners, a variety of agencies became involved, ensuring a range of expertise and knowledge within the group. The group includes agencies and professionals such as probation, children's social care, child and adolescent mental health service, health visitors, the Military Training Correction Centre, educational welfare officers, children's centres, domestic abuse services, Ormiston and Chelsea Football Club Foundation.
The steering group meets every 2 months to discuss their progress and plan next stages. An example of the group's achievements so far includes the development of a data sharing agreement between probation and the Children's Centres, with the aim of providing a better picture of which families are affected by imprisonment in the local area. Furthermore a sub-group has been created, consisting of Children's Centres, mental health services and Ormiston, in order to produce child friendly workbooks to support children when their parent first goes to prison and when visiting. Hidden Sentence training is delivered by the Children's Centres in North East Essex, and the need for further training to support professionals who are working with children affected by prison was highlighted by the steering group - the possibility of developing a further training day is being considered. The group's positive attendance by a range of agencies, participation at the meetings, general passion and drive to develop services to support these families has been crucial in the success of the steering group.
