The COPING Project - children of prisoners, interventions and mitigations to strengthen mental health

Abstract

Background/Objectives: COPING is a child-centred project which aims to investigate the characteristics and care of children with imprisoned parents, their resilience, and their vulnerability to mental health problems. This group of children is exposed to break-up of the family, financial hardship, and extremes of stigma and secrecy, leading to adverse social and educational repercussions. COPING aims to enhance understanding of mental health needs of prisoners’ children; to explore childhood resilience and coping strategies and assess the value of these concepts for planning of interventions; to bring together European and international perspectives to investigate the nature and extent of mental health problems affecting prisoners’ children; to raise awareness of policymakers and service providers across EU countries to the needs of this under-researched group; and to identify effective policy interventions and steer public policy to ameliorate mental health implications for affected children.