It can sometimes be difficult for parents / carers to drop off and pick up their children at the support groups because of the stigma of having a family member in prison. We therefore ask parents / carers not to ask one another about the nature of any crimes committed. This can be very uncomfortable for those who might not want to talk about it and not know what to say if directly asked. Also, many children do not know the nature of their parent’s crime so it is important that such conversations are not overhead or inappropriately shared. Staff, students and volunteers must all respect this.
Support groups can be quite costly to set up. We know how busy you are but we ask parents and carers to do their best to communicate with us if your children can attend or not, although we know this is not always easy. This helps us to know how many children we will be supporting and catering for in advance.
Everyone has very different experiences of statutory services (such as the police, social workers, teachers, prison workers). We want you to be able to share these experiences freely with one another as we recognise it helps to talk, but also, we ask that everyone is mindful that experiences can be very diverse.
We are reliant on parents and carers to tell us what helps their child / children have a positive experience of our service. Please do tell us if there is something we can do more / less of / not at all in our sessions so that your children are as happy and comfortable as possible. We want and value your honesty.
