Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that support services for children with a parent in prison are based on the best interests of the child, particularly for children for whom contact with the imprisoned parent is not appropriate.

The department recognises the impact that a parent going to prison can have on a child’s wellbeing, learning, behaviour and mental health, but we also recognise that support should be based on the needs of each individual child, not solely the characteristic of having a parent in prison.

A strengths-based approach is implicit in the government’s new recognition and support pilots. This will focus on each child’s abilities, interests, positive characteristics, supportive relationships and their potential, with the goal of enabling them to thrive into adulthood. We appreciate that it is not appropriate for some children to visit their parent in prison and some may not want to even if they can. The pilots are not designed to facilitate a child’s contact with their parent in prison and there are separate processes in place to ensure contact is supported when it is safe and appropriate.