Research into Practice

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Research into Practice

• How do we know what helps?

Dr. Nancy Loucks Families Outside
Conference Glasgow, 28 November 2006
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Robertson Trust pilot projects

• The Lighthouse Foundation Family Support Project
• HOPE Family Addictions project
• One Stop Childcare (now SmileChildcare) Families
  United programme

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Lighthouse Foundation

• Kilmarnock area
• Regular presence at HMP Kilmarnock prison
  Visitors Centre
• Independent charity for families of people with
  addictions
• Offer support, counselling, advice, and
  information

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we have a collect-call system through which
criminals support the cost of incarceration
instead of taxpayers. A collect-call system?
Isnt that the families paying for the
calls? Families, criminals its the same
thing. Bernstein 2005 87
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HOPE Family Addictions Project

• Glasgow-based charity to support prisoners and
  their families
• Parenting programme as part of addictions course
  in HMP Barlinnie
• Support both prisoners and families
• Needs-based service

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Putting bars between a woman and her children
may be enough to make her think about how she has
hurt them, but if you offer her no means of
making things better, that painful realization
can lead right back to drugs. Bernstein
2005 245
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One Stop Child CareFamilies United Programme

• Now SmileChildcare
• Independent charity focused on the needs of
  families and carers
• 12 2-hour sessions at HMP Edinburgh
• Course to identify how prisoners can support
  family and improve own caring role
• Initially to include partner

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Think about how central being a parent is to our
lives, how it motivates us, causes us to act one
way or another. To presume to motivate prisoners
towards changing their lives and not include in
the calculus their relationship with their
children is bizarre. - Ben de Haan, Childrens
Justice Alliance, Oregon
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What have we learned?

• Reach people where they are
• Address actual needs
• Engage and challenge prisoners in their role
• Engage families
• Ensure that services exist and that they continue
  to exist

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Dr. Nancy Loucks Nancy_at_NLoucks.demon.co.uk