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06 Sept 2025

Funding pledge for Devon parent-in-prison children

Shocking figures show two out of three boys will end up jailed like parents

County Hall Exeter Pic LDRS

County Hall Exeter Pic LDRS

Reporter:

Bradley Gerrard LDRS

30 Mar 2025 3:00 PM

Email:

torbayweekly@clearskypublishing.co.uk

Funding to support children who have had a parent sent to prison is to continue.

Funding to support children who have had a parent sent to prison is to continue.
The topic, described to members of a Devon County Council committee as “very much a hidden issue” featured among problems linked to efforts to help reduce or prevent violence in the county.
Nationwide, nearly 200,000 children had a parent in prison between October 2021 and the same period the following year, according to government data.
Two in three boys who experience a parent going to prison are later imprisoned themselves, according to a 1996 Cambridge University study which is still considered valid today.
Julie Richards, community safety and violence prevention lead at Devon County Council told its corporate infrastructure and regulatory services committee that it is trying to identify children “who have been impacted by parental imprisonment.”
She continued:  “I’m pleased to say that partners have taken the decision to continue to fund this area of work into 2025/26 and so we will be able to reach a larger number of children impacted by this issue.”
Ms Richards said the council’s work with its partners in the Safer Devon Partnership is the “only dedicated offer”.
She described a programme called The Not My Sentence programme by Space Education Support Services that helps guide young people whose parents have gone to prison, explaining how it “covers the justice system and what prison is like, focusing dispelling myths as it has become clear that young people have a very unrealistic view of what life in prison is like.”
Cllr Alister Dewhirst (Liberal Democrat, Ipplepen and the Kerswells) welcomed the work.
“They are building an enormous prison down the road from me at enormous cost, and those costs could be mitigated by helping children such as these,” he said.
Cllr Debo Sellis (Conservative, Tavistock) asked what work is done “with ante-natal assessments, as surely that is the grass roots and a primary area where you can identify risk.”
The Safer Devon Partnership, which brings together public sector organisations and voluntary groups, oversees the county’s response to requirements around tackling violence.

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