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32 Law Context: A Socio-Legal J. 4 (2015)
Responding to Children When Their Parents Are Incarcerated: Exploring the Responses in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia

handle is hein.journals/lwincntx32 and id is 12 raw text is: Responding to Children When Their Parents are Incarcerated: Exploring the Responses in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia Catherine Flynn, Tess Bartlett, Paula Fernandez Arias, Phillipa Evans and Alannah Burgess* There is considerable research conducted over the past 50 years which describes the impact on children of parental incarceration. Research has also focused on describing the care arrangements of such children. Yet there has been no specific examination of the trajectory of care for these children, the processes surrounding this care, or its resultant quality. This article reports the findings of an ARC funded study examining care planning processes in Victoria and New South Wales for these children. We concentrate in this paper on a subset of data from 124professional stakeholders, who commented on their experi- ences of responding to children, in the context of their organisational remit, processes and expectations. Findings indicate that children of prisoners are largely invisible in adult organisations and that there are typically poor or poorly understood interagency protocols to respond to these children. Respondents report relying on informal informa- tion, networks and resources and working outside of their role to meet the needs of children. Clear suggestions are made for improvements, including developing child-sensitive services, a child-focused approach and clearer protocols and guidelines for working with others. I INTRODUCTION A Imprisoning Adults =Imprisoning Parents The current growth in incarceration in Australia' and similar patterns in other western countries,2 unsurprisingly has had flow-on effects to families. It is estimated that around 5% of children in Australia will * Feedback on earlier drafts of this paper was gratefully received by the authors from Victoria Police. I Australian Bureau of Statistics, Prisoners in Australia 2012, 4517. 0. (ABS, 2013) <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/6DBFA1B30EOFF7D9CA25 7B3COOODC7AF?opendocument>. 2 Ministry of Justice, Offender Management Statistics Quarterly Bulletin October to December 2011, England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2012); Australian Bureau of Statistics, above n 1.

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