[DeepL:] In recent years, the situation of families of prisoners and the stress and need for help of the affected minor relatives have increasingly come into the focus of the independent criminal assistance and the penal institutions. That the incarceration of a parent creates a significant risk for children to suffer from mental health problems is evidenced for the first time by the research study COPING (Children of Prisoners, Interventions and Mitigations to Strengthen Mental Health, 2012). When a parent is absent, children experience limitations in their identity and self-esteem development, attachment, relationship and performance skills.
FREIE HILFE BERLIN e.V. has created a service dedicated to addressing the issues of incarcerated individuals related to separation from family. We offer professional support for the wives and children of the incarcerated fathers, become accompanying, which can reduce the worries of the whole family:
It is an open offer for detainees of the correctional facilities Moabit, Heidering, Tegel as well as for relaxed inmates from the closed and open prisons in Berlin and family members, in particular children of inmates and their parents. This service is provided with the help of individual socio-educational counseling, parent-couple counseling, and guided group work.