Blog – Preventing the harm of Maternal Imprisonment

Farhana Ahmed

In our next blog, Farhana Ahmed reflects on her experience presenting at our parliamentary event on maternal imprisonment, and explains what really needs to change so young people’s voices are heard when their mother goes to prison. Farhana also informed the One Small Thing response to the Commission on Young Lives call for evidence.

In July I had the absolute pleasure of speaking at an event on maternal imprisonment in the House of Parliament for One Small Thing. Alongside my sister, we spoke confidently, and I hope our words were powerful enough to make improvements for parents and children that are caught in a cycle of crime, going through trauma in the justice system.

It's inspiring the people that we met there. All these years, we've waited for something to change. It's been years and we've been keeping up with the news and nothing's happening. It’s nice that we were part of something, and to watch what people are hopefully going to change.

I feel like when it comes to children that are dealing with their parents in prison, we're not heard because we're children. And when our mum went to prison, it was just so secretive. And I just wish we were kept in the loop. I wanted to understand what was happening. I wanted to know, what’s the next part in this. It's like, you don't have a say in it and that's the worst thing about it. Maybe I was quite young, but I understand to a certain extent, and so do most children. There are ways you can explain to children.

I was 11 or 12 when this all happened. My sister was three years younger than me. At that time, she was the voice for me. Because I was at a point in my life that I had enough of no one listening, no one understanding. She was basically my role model even though she was younger. She didn't understand as much as I did. She was the one speaking because I just got to the point where I was like, ‘you know what, whatever happens happens, I don't care anymore’. I felt like this is my case so I should be the main person but no one's there to support us. And I gave up. I just became mute and when I had social workers and legal guardians come in, I'll just keep my head down and I wouldn't even look at them.

My foster carers found out stuff before I did. I know this is bad, but I'd hear them on the phone when I was upstairs in my room. And I'm just eavesdropping, because I can hear what's happening, so I'm just thinking in my head, when do I find out what's happening, or when am I going to see my mum in prison? We'd be the last people to know when we should be the first because that's our mum. It got so irritating and annoying that we spoke to so many people, but the same thing happened. Because we are children at the end of the day, children don't matter apparently.

There was a lot of issues and miscommunication. For example, I'm Muslim, and our social worker sent us to a Sikh household thinking they were Muslim. And at that time, I was wearing the hijab. And because they saw me wearing a hijab, I was called names. And it was a very horrible experience being in that care.

I just feel like it's a reoccurring cycle that's just going to happen again and again. Because I understand English, it's easy for you guys. But what if I wasn't English? What if I wasn't allowed to speak to you or something? There should be training but obviously, there's only so much training can do. For children who have immigrated into this country and their English isn't great, how would you support them? If they have no idea, you can only get so many translators- how is it possible to support them when they're in a situation where their mum's gone to prison?

I've only seen white social workers, I've never ever come across any other social workers. It's very difficult. I feel like it's the age as well, they were the older generation including the legal professionals. I knew they would look at us a different way, and they think we don't understand. I felt really out of place, you could tell you're not wanted.

Children and young people going through such a tough situation need someone to talk to. There should be always someone to talk with, a helpline, support service or peer support, because I know how low in depression you can get. To feel like, I don't deserve to be here anymore. Like, what's the point? You're in a home with strangers and your mum's in prison, you feel worthless. Feeling alone is the worst depression you can have. It just sort of eats you alive.

Before mum was in prison I used to have a support worker and I absolutely loved it, they used to take us out when my mum had meetings. She had to go to the court and stuff and we had support workers take us to the park or something like that. My sister had her own one as well. And it was nice because we were treated as individuals. Because obviously, we have different emotions and different needs so it was nice that we are treated individually.

I feel like there should be community-based centres to help rather than women going straight to prison. Separating the children and mum is the worst thing to do. If I could do anything to go back to my childhood with mum, I would do it but my mum's missed out on everything. Like my finishing school to college, and everything else she's missed out on. You can never get that time back.

We want to avoid the impact of children’s voices going unheard whilst going through the care system. Even better, they should be able to be with their mothers not separated, whether it’s in Hope Street or another centre, but definitely something more child friendly.

LETS START WITH CHANGE!

 By Farhana Ahmed

If you are a young person looking for support around parental imprisonment you find find more information from charities such as: https://childrenheardandseen.co.uk/ and https://www.prisonadvice.org.uk/