The Well-being of Children of

1

• The Well-being of Children of
• incarcerated Mothers
• Preliminary Results of a Dutch cohort

Menno Ezinga Sanne Hissel Anne-Marie Slotboom
Catrien Bijleveld
2
Introduction

• Growing number of incarcerated women
• (400 ? 800)
• Little knowledge of their family
• Do they have children?
• No check of civil registrations.
• However, knowledge is important for possible
  necessary interventions by the government before,
  during, and after mothers detention.

3
Previous research

• Netherlands almost no empirical research on the
  well-being of children of incarcerated mothers.
  Some research on the contact facilities between
  mothers and their children.
• Anglo Saxon growing number of attention
• Review Murray and Farrington (2008)
• Incarcerated mothers possibly more damaging for
  the well-being of the child than incarcerated
  fathers.

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PROBLEM

• Children separated from their mothers
• Risk factor for problem behavior and decreased
  well-being (Murray Farrington, 2008).
• Separation between child and parent by
  incarceration could act as supplementary risk
  factor for problem behavior and decreased
  well-being.
• Maternal deprivation creates most likely an even
  more vulnerable situation, as mother often is
  primary caregiver.

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PROBLEM (2)

• Signals for sharp decrease in Quality of Life and
  well-being (psychological and physical)
• Economical deprivation
• Delayed/stagnated psychological development
• Attachment problems (Poehlmann, 2005)
• Social problems (stigmatization, bullying,
  deviant peers, taboo).

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Purpose

• Study on well-being of children of incarcerated
  mothers in the Netherlands
• Well-being is studied in general
• How is caregiving organized now mother is in
  detention?
• What is well-being of the children?
• Is there any sign of internalizing or
  externalizing problem behavior?
• More specifically do the children experience
  anxiety problems, mood disorders or aggression
  problems?

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Sample

• Children
• 0-18
• Incarcerated mothers
• Caregivers (fathers, family, foster home)
• Teachers

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Instruments (1) Interview Observations

• Semi-structured Interview with mother and
  caregiver.
• Semi-structured interview with the child (when
  possible).
• Observation of the child and its environment.

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Instruments (2)

• Child Behaviour Checklists CBCL
• Youth Self Report YSR problem behavior
• Teachers Reports Form TRF
• Personality-/behavioral questionnaires on traits,
  aggression, depression and anxiety.

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Preliminary Results Quantitative
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Preliminary results quantitative

• Norms of the behavioral checklists 7 borderline
  score of being problematic.
• Mothers and care givers score overall gt 7.
• Example Almost 40 of the mothers score their
  child(ren) as borderline or clinical problematic
  on the anxiety and depression scale.
• Also care-givers rate the children as showing
  more behavioral problems than the mothers rate.

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Self-report Short summary

• Self-report children report less problems than
  the grown ups. Still problems are reported on
  levels of
• Anxiety
• Aggression
• No reports of mood problems/depression
• So
• More problems than the norm population would
  score
• With the exception of affective problems and
  emotional problem mothers are low on reporting
  problem behavior of their children
• Care-givers score higher on (externalizing)
  problem behavior than mothers do.
• The children report anxiety problems and
  aggressive behavior

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Preliminary Results Qualitative

• Mothers
• The prison climate and regime are not
  contributing to maintaining contact with the
  children
• Concerns about the pedagogical climate of the
  child now mother is incarcerated

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Preliminary Results Qualitative

• Children
• They realize the seriousness of the situation (by
  observing mother in jail).
• Missing their mother ?? Finally a break for the
  constant tension at home
• Visits have enormous impact ? logistically and
  during visit

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Discussion

• Mothers are sometimes unrealistic about future
  care giving when they are released, and about the
  upbringing of their child
• Incongruent with childrens vision
• Children are often far from positive about the
  possible return of their mother. The same opinion
  is found at the care givers.
• Care-givers worry about upcoming return of mother
• Foster care or remaining parent?

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Discussion

• Externalizing problem behavior often seen by
  care-giver, not as much by mother
• Not visible, while not in daily routine
• Keeping up appearances. Afraid of Youth Care
• Internalizing problem behavior reported by mother
  in affection and emotions
• Visits create tension en forced feeling of
  happiness. Children are experiencing complex
  feeling and emotions ? causes behaviors (tantrums
  or sadness) that reflects on mother

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End

• Future
• Start of PhD project on female detention and
  parenting (S. Hissel)
• Fine tune analysis of the complete dataset
• Expansion of the project by searching for similar
  European projects
• Feel free to comment me or ask any questions in
  this matter!
• m.ezinga_at_rechten.vu.nl
• www.rechten.vu.nl/nsmv