UpFamilies

UpFamilies website: https://upfamilies.eu

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The incarceration experience represents economic, social and psychological impacts for the families of people in prison. The prisoners’ families are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations in society, experiencing multidimensional and intersectional forms of inequality (Western and Pettit, 2010).

Many of the consequences on prisoners’ families can be alleviated by some moderators, such as the support provided by non-governmental organizations, welfare policies and social services (Condry & Smith, 2018). The problem is that most of the time these families lack awareness on where and how to look for this support.

The UpFamilies project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (Agreement number: 2021-1-ES01-KA220-ADU-000025967). It aims to help families affected by imprisonment, providing them with a compendium of existing services available, from local to national, which can help them to cope with imprisonment impacts. The services’ up-to-date information will be made available using a mobile application. 

At the same time, the project intends to create awareness on the importance of capacity building of the organisations that daily work with these families, so they can be better prepared for their unique needs.

The UpFamilies App

The UpFamilies app is a search engine for families of people in prison to find support services around them.

You can search by keyword or type of service, or family member (children, partners, people in prison or reintegration, other family members). It also includes a map to see services nearby. 

We encourage organisations and associations to register information about the services they offer and how to contact them.

The UpFamilies app is now available on Google Play and Apple Store 

Roadmap

UpFamilies have created a short and simple Roadmap in order to:

• To raise awareness of the needs and obstacles faced by families of people in prison or in the process of reintegration. 
• To raise awareness of the services that support these families in the project´s countries. 
• To list the gaps in services and the type of support that is most lacking.
• To offer recommendations to guide the development of policies to support these families.

We encourage you to download the roadmap on the webpage of the project. 

Training to improve support for families

UpFamilies offers materials for a course open to anyone in the community who would like to learn or provide training on how to create or improve a support service for families of people in prison. The aim is to mobilise civil society support for these families.

Each module has an online self-study part and a practical group work part for the elaboration of proposals such as: creation and improvement of services for families, creation of networks to coordinate services for families, dissemination of awareness-raising campaigns on the need to support families, etc. 

The course and the accompanying manual are available on the web page of the project. 

Events to showcase project’s results, resources and services 

UpFamilies partners have organized events in Spain, Portugal, Romania, Greece and Germany to disseminate UpFamilies’ project results and give voice to the services and the families. For example, Fundación Diagrama organised a national conference in Spain on the 8th of October on the project and the services for families of people in prison. There were several interventions by experts in: psychological treatment for children, positive parenting programmes, and treatment of addictions and/or dual pathology. You can watch these interventions on Diagrama’s Youtube channel. 

UpFamilies network

The UpFamilies Network has been adding organisations that show a commitment to supporting the families of people in prison or in the process of reintegration. If your organisation or association would like information on how to join, please contact us on the contact form of the UpFamilies website. You can also watch the UpFamies Network event on showcasing best practices that is available on the website.

You can access more information also on the project's blog and social networks:

Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

Objectives

With these resources and actions, UpFamilies has achieved several objectives, such as:

• Developing a roadmap on existing services and programmes that better meet the needs of prisoners’ families.
• Creating a mobile application with existing services and programmes available for prisoners’ families.
• Increasing the number of prisoners’ families that use the mobile application, fighting against info-exclusion.
• Creating a network of institutions and professionals that work with prisoners’ families, promoting alliances and cooperation between all.
• Promoting good practices regarding the already available services to provide support to prisoners’ families.
• Contributing to the improvement of the services provided to prisoners’ families.
• Increasing awareness among citizenship on the needs of these families, making available a training manual to mobilise the community’s capacity to provide informal support and assistance to prisoners’ families.