There's no support, it's a nightmare trip, but you cope and you get through it: Custodial grandparents' experiences of raising the child/ren of their incarcerated son/daughter

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Title

Crime and Violence Prevention

Publisher

Nova Science Publishers

Place of Publication

New York, NY

Editor(s)

Taylor, M.F., Khan, U., & Pooley, J. A.

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

RAS ID

21691

Comments

Taylor, M., Marquis, R., Batten, R., & Coall, D. (2016). There's no support, it's a nightmare trip, but you cope and you get through it: Custodial grandparents' experiences of raising the child/ren of their incarcerated son/daughter. In M. F. Taylor, U. Khan, & J. A. Pooley (Eds.), Crime and violence prevention (pp. 137-156). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Abstract

Grandparent care of their grandchild/ren ranges in type from no involvement to full-time custodial care. The assumption of custodial care is frequently an unplanned event and can cause a momentary hesitation on the grandparent's behalf given that becoming a custodial grandparent is a retirement plans changing decision. However, in most cases the welfare of their grandchild/ren supersedes the grandparent's future desires. Of all grandparents who assume the custodial care of their grandchild/ren those who do so as a result of their son/daughter's incarceration have been found to be particularly vulnerable. For, as this study reveals, custodial grandparents ot only have to deal with their offspring's reason for incarceration, but they also have to deal with the stresses associated with visiting their offspring in prison, overcoming the stigma associated with their offspring's incarceration, and coping with their offspring's within prison and post-release conflictual parenting demands. Moreover, custodial grandparents live with the fear that their grandchild/ren will follow in their parent's footsteps. The chapter concludes that the benefits of providing systemic supports to custodial grandparents is the interventional strategy that would likely lessen the risk of the current inter-generational continuance of incarceration in vulnerable families.

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