The far-reaching benefits of a program providing vital connection between incarcerated parents and their children has been highlighted in a submission to a Legislative Council inquiry.
Friends of Castlemaine Library representatives made the submission to the inquiry examining the impact of parental incarceration on children.
FOCAL’s submission addressed the positive impacts of its Read-Along Dads/Mums program, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2022.
FOCAL representative Denise Jepson attended the Melbourne hearing to speak to the submission.
One of the program’s facilitators, Lisa D’Onofrio, who works one-on-one with men and women in the Loddon, Middleton and Tarrengower Prisons, also participated in the hearing via Zoom.
Ms Jepson said Read-Along Dads/Mums began as a six-month program at Castlemaine’s Loddon Prison to enable prisoners to record an audio book for their child. The CD (or USB) was then forwarded on to the child together with the book.
The program was so well received that FOCAL continued the initiative through various small grants and then eventually secured funding through Corrections Victoria and the Legal Services Board.
This funding has been renewed for the past six years and the initiative was subsequently expanded to Middleton (a large new annexe of Loddon) and the Tarrengower Women’s Prison at Maldon.
FOCAL estimates that over the past decade about 140 prisoners a year have taken part with more than 350 books a year produced for children to enjoy at home.
The initiative also provided vital connections during the COVID lockdowns when prisons were closed to visitors, with the audio books created via Zoom.
“Parents are the main participants in the program but it is also offered to brothers, grandparents, uncles and aunts who want to maintain connections with children in their lives,” Ms Jepson said.
Benefits include improved relationships for the child providing better mental health; connection to family helping reduce re-offending; and improved literacy for prisoners and children.
“We have had much feedback from prisoners saying they and their families received many benefits from the program,” Ms Jepson said.
“My favourite was ‘Thanks miss, they all cried when they got the CD. My missus cried, my mum cried, and my daughter loved it. I told them I’m only in prison, I’m not dead’.”
“At the hearing, Fiona Patten MP said the prisoner’s comment that really struck her was ‘He said he liked hearing me laugh on the CD. He didn’t want me to be sad all the time when I was in here’.”
FOCAL’s program only costs approximately $37,000 per annum to run across the three local prisons and they would love to see it expanded across the whole state and beyond.
“We have received enquiries from around Australia for information and advice on how to set up a similar program and have directly assisted three prisons in setting up and running a similar program, two in Victoria and one in Western Australia,” Ms Jepson said.
The Legal and Social Issues Committee will take on board all submissions and examine existing policies and services available for children affected by parental incarceration.
It will consider available models in Victoria and other jurisdictions and examine their effectiveness.
The committee is scheduled to report back to parliament by July 1, 2022.
