Funding to support children in Devon who have had a parent sent to prison will continue.

A continuation of cash should mean more children who have a parent in prison can be supported to help avoid them being incarcerated themselves.

Devon County Council committee members heard how the topic is“very much a hidden issue”.

Julie Richards, community safety and violence prevention lead at Devon County Council told its corporate infrastructure and regulatory services committee this week that it is trying to identify children “who have been impacted by parental imprisonment”.

She continued: “I’m pleased to say that partners have taken the decision to continue to fund this area of work into 2025/26 and so we will be able to reach a larger number of children impacted by this issue.”

Two out of three boys who experience a parent going to prison are later imprisoned themselves, according to a 1996 Cambridge University study which is still considered valid today.

Ms Richards said the council’s work with its partners in the Safer Devon Partnership was the “only dedicated offer”.

She described a programme called The Not My Sentence programme by Space Education Support Services that helps guide young people whose parents have gone to prison, explaining how it “covers the justice system and what prison is like, focusing dispelling myths as it has become clear that young people have a very unrealistic view of what life in prison is like”.

Cllr Alister Dewhirst (Liberal Democrat, Ipplepen and the Kerswells) welcomed the work.

He said: “They are building an enormous prison down the road from me at enormous cost, and those costs could be mitigated by helping children such as these,”

Cllr Debo Sellis (Conservative, Tavistock) asked what work was being done “with antenatal assessments, as surely that is the grassroots and a primary area where you can identify risk.”