HM Prison Aberdeen

'Dads inside and out' - working with Aberdeen Peep, Aberdeen City Council and HM Prison Aberdeen, Craiginches

project structure:

• Six sessions with fathers, followed by a seventh family session before release.
• Focused discussion/ talk-time around children’s needs and parental responsibilities; routines, play and other aspects of child development; attachment, and creating portfolio diaries.
• Activities that provide ideas for positive interactions between parent and child, as well as promoting learning, e.g. stories, songs, puppet making, messy play.
• Family fun session to enable learning to be put into practice.

staff: a Peep practitioner and a Prison officer

feedback:

• Dads were reflecting and thinking more about both the impact on their children, and the role of their partner in caring for their children while they are absent.
• A dad who had been in prison since his child was 1 year old (now 4) had said at the beginning that he didn’t know how to interact with his son. At the family session he was animatedly sharing his homemade book and puppet with his son.
• Dads were reflecting on making longer term lifestyle changes to stop re-offending.