Sova Visiting Mum
A simple and unique project that aims to benefit imprisoned mothers from South Wales held at HMP Eastwood Park and their children still living across the region.
Sova has formed an innovative partnership with the families charity PACT, Children’s Social Services and the Prison Service to design a unique programme funded by the Big Lottery Innovation Fund that aims to:
- Combat the “hidden sentence” endured by children whilst their mothers are in prison.
- Combat the poor mental health outcomes and increase the wellbeing of children of imprisoned mothers.
- Increase community safety by reducing reoffending
Visiting Mum will quite simply support imprisoned mothers held at HMP Eastwood Park and their children living across South Wales.
Many of the children of imprisoned mothers are prevented from maintaining contact with their parent. The two biggest factors for this are the cost of travel and the lack of an adult to take the children to visit their parent whilst they are in prison. Visiting Mum identifies families who are likely to lose contact during a prison sentence.
The project works with the mothers to help them continue in their parenting role from prison and provides the children with volunteers who will take them to Eastwood Park on a regular basis and offer the wrap around emotional support they need.
To ensure that both parties are prepared and that the mother has the tools available to help make the visits as successful as possible, the project team will work with both the mothers and children before and after every visit addressing their emotional needs and encouraging better quality visits, phone calls and letters.
Sova's Volunteer Co-ordinator, based in Cardiff, will recruit, train and supervise a team of community volunteers across South and West Wales. Once a family is identified as being in need of support, the child and carer will be introduced to their contact volunteer. This volunteer will then book social visits for the child and accompany them to HMP Eastwood Park once a month until their mother has been released.
For more information please visit http://www.sova.org.uk/project/visitingmum
Contact:
- Sova Visiting Mum Project, Sham Ahmed, 57-59 St Mary Street, Cardiff, CF10 1FE
- Telephone 02920 221 936
- E-Mail [email protected]
Visiting Mum 2017 Executive Summary
