The imprisonment of a household member is one of ten adverse childhood experiences known to have a significant negative impact on children’s long-term health and wellbeing, their attainment, and later life experiences. Children may have to take on extra responsibilities at home, including becoming young carers in some situations.

These children are at risk of poor outcomes including stigma, isolation and poor mental health. Parental imprisonment is also associated specifically with negative school experiences, such as truanting, bullying and failure to achieve in education and children of prisoners are at a higher risk of mental ill health and have an increased likelihood of experiencing poverty compared to their peers.

Approximately 200,000 children have a parent sent to prison each year and, as such, our staff will support children and their family members if children from our school have family members in prison. In such cases, staff will remain non-judgemental and supportive towards the child and family so that they can achieve the best whilst in our environment. Furthermore, if a parent of carer finds themselves in this situation, we encourage them to speak with our Principal so that support can be given as necessary.