‘It was just like we were a family again’: play as a means to maintain family ties for children visiting an imprisoned parent

Abstract

Children can find the process of visiting a prison traumatic and as a result of parental incarceration may experience a range of adverse outcomes. When children stay in contact with their imprisoned parent through prison visiting, however, this seems to be a protective factor. This paper reports on a play visits service based at Her Majesty's Prison Leeds, UK. The service provides supervised play work provision for children visiting their father. Data were derived from prisoners and prisoners' families and were triangulated as a means of achieving a level of validity. The findings reveal that play visits do produce positive outcomes for children and play visits are effective in maintaining and strengthening family ties. These effects may be stronger when compared to standard prison visits, but further research is needed to confirm this.

Keywords:

• prison
• prison visiting
• family ties
• play work

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of the prisoners and families who took the time to share their views and participate in the study.

Notes on contributors

Dr James Woodall is a Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Health Promotion Research at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Karina Kinsella is a Research Assistant at the Institute for Health and Wellbeing, Leeds Metropolitan University.

Lee Stephenson is the Manager of the Jigsaw Visitors’ Centre at Her Majesty's Prison Leeds.