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Description
The project is targeted at the children of people deprived of freedom, who spend a prolonged part of their childhood without a parent, or both parents in some cases. The latter factor is a high-risk development indicator. These children do not have access to their parent, no communication takes place or quite rarely occurs, which results in psychological, public, educational and social difficulties. Parents experience the phenomenon of “parental alienation”, which further exacerbates what happens with the child. From the time their parents are taken into custody, children have to deal with the consequences of criminal justice and are vulnerable to social isolation, alienation and shame. The project aims at creating communication between magistrates and the children of prisoners, which might be taken into account in decision-making on criminal cases and in determining the sentence length; developing a new way of working in court with children at risk; raising public interest in the topic; and helping overcome parental alienation. These risk factors have been recognized in the international practice a long time before the coronavirus crisis. The highly restrictive measures imposed on social life due to the pandemic mainly affect the most vulnerable public groups, some of whom are the end users of the project results. The activities will contribute to overcoming the negative consequences of isolation during the pandemic, which poses risk to both the child of a prisoner and the parent. Direct users will be children and adolescents (aged 0-17), and the target group/intermediary will be judges and psychologists.
Summary of project results
All project achieved ist objectives.The specifics of parental alienation and what should be done to prevent it were presented and explained to the target group of magistrates and psychologists. The methods used were effective for the target group, which is evident from the positive feedback and interest in the topic and in additional topics and materials on the main issue of parental alienation. This gives confidence to the team that it will be possible to secure sustainable interest and partnerships in the direction of improving the situation concerning the direct users of the reporting project.
The main methods and tools that were used to achieve the goals and results of the project were direct training of the target groups and provision of materials on the subject.
A live seminar was held for magistrates working in Appellate District, Varna, as well as an online seminar for psychologists, which was attended by psychologists from Blagoevgrad, Sofia and Sliven regions. After the events, materials were sent to the participants, which can be used free of charge by them and relate to the topic of the report project.
After the end of the mentioned events, there were requests for further training on the subject, which proves the sustainability of the project activities under the present project.