Title: Together in Prison: Developing a parenting programme to promote family wellbeing for young fathers in prison
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: There are around 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales and recent estimates suggest that 54% are parents. Imprisonment affects the whole family, where having a father in prison increases the likelihood of antisocial behaviour, delinquency and being involved themselves in the criminal justice system. Young men in prison are a vulnerable group with histories of social exclusions, exposure to violence in childhood, bereavement, abuse, neglect and time spent in local authority care. The lack of exposure to positive parenting and developing fathering identities whilst imprisoned, present challenges integrating back into their own families and parenting their own children in a positive way. The Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting programme has been successfully delivered by local authorities and community organisations across the country and has demonstrated encouraging positive outcomes for both children and parents. The programme is designed to promote protective factors which are associated with good parenting and better outcomes for children. The aim of the research is to assess the parenting needs of an ethnically diverse sample of young fathers in prison and adapt and amend the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting programme to be acceptable and appropriate to young fathers and be integrated within the social care and criminal justice setting. The study will take place over 20 months across four prisons (with around 900 young men) which have high proportions of young men from diverse ethnic groups. The study utilises mixed-methods across four work streams, including: work stream 1, which examines the parenting needs of young men in prison through a quantitative survey across the four prisons and qualitative semi-structured interviews with 20 young fathers in prison. Work stream 2 will examine the needs of families whilst a young father is in prison and on release, through conducting semi-structured interviews with 12 family members and 10 staff from social care, health and criminal justice agencies. In work stream 3, insights from work streams 1 and 2 will presented in a participatory workshop with a focus to adapt and amend the parenting programme and assess how best to integrate support on release from prison. In work stream 4, the parenting programme will be tested by delivering to a group of young men in a prison with key process data collection relating to uptake, retention, and acceptability to ensure benefits to social care are achievable and to inform future feasibility and pilot. The research will provide a comprehensive assessment of parenting need with a developed and tested parenting programme. The findings will be disseminated through a leaflet and talks to young men in the prisons. Findings will be shared through academic publications and conferences, podcasts, and social media. The research will produce a final parenting programme and it is anticipated that prisons will continue to deliver the parenting programme for young fathers in prison with further research to examine the impact on family wellbeing.

Lay abstract: This study aims to assess the needs a diverse group of young fathers in four prisons and adapt and amend the Strengthening families, Strengthening Communities parenting programme. There are approximately 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales, most are men and many are fathers. Young men in prison (age 15-21 years old) are particularly vulnerable as many have health problems like mental illnesses and substance misuse, have been excluded from school, experienced a lot of violence, abuse or neglect as children and/or spent time in care. These experiences mean parenting their own children can be difficult which can have a negative impact on theirs and their child s emotional wellbeing where having a parent in prison is linked to increased antisocial behaviours and likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system. Strengthening families, Strengthening Communities parenting programme has been successful in supporting family wellbeing in non-prison settings, and this study will aim to adapt and amend for young fathers in prison. We want to include young men across four prisons, families and key staff in this study. The study will include four work streams. In work stream 1, we will ask around 900 young men in prison to complete a survey and 20 young fathers to take part in an interview to assess their mental wellbeing and experiences of parenting styles. In work stream 2, we will interview 12 family members and 10 staff from social care, health and criminal justice agencies to assess the needs of families when a young father in prison and what their needs might be on release. In work stream 3, we will conduct a participatory workshop with staff, prisoners and family members to discuss the study findings, and adapt and amend the parenting programme and assess how best to include in social care. The parenting programme will then be delivered with young men in a prison and data will be collected on how many young fathers take up the programme, attend the sessions and what their views are when completed. The study team include those with academic, practice and policy expertise, as well as an expert by experience (lay person). A Patient and Public involvement (PPI) group of six young men who have been in prison as a parent will meet regularly with the study team. We will give summaries of the findings to people who took part in the study and speak directly with prisoners on the prison wings. We will share the findings through academic publications and conferences, podcasts, and social media. The plan will be to pilot the parenting programme in future studies to explore if this can lead to more improved mental wellbeing for young men in prison and their families.

Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS;8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE