Operation Paramount - Uniting data to recognise children affected by parental imprisonment

When a parent goes to prison, their sentence doesn’t stop at the prison gates. In the UK, parental imprisonment is a hidden driver of vulnerability; disrupting childhoods, destabilising families, and increasing the risk of poor outcomes across generations.

This session explores Operation Paramount, a coordinated response designed to identify and support children affected by parental imprisonment earlier, more holistically, and with greater consistency across agencies. Historically, these children have remained largely invisible to systems not designed to ask the right questions or share information safely and effectively.

In 2025 we know more about the number of Labradors registered across the UK (around 38,000 if you are interested!) than we do about the numbers of young people affected by this tricky issue. With sporadic self-declaration at the prison gates, and limited opportunities for young people to break through the stigma of having a parent in prison to ask for help, a joined-up data solution was the breakthrough opportunity to help transform lives and support families when they need it most.

In this talk, we will go behind the scenes of Operation Paramount, how it was implemented in practice, how we were able to leverage our common data platform to bring together important new datasets, and the key lessons learned; including what worked, what we had to rethink, and where unintended challenges emerged.

This talk comes in an exciting year where the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education work together to deliver the governments manifesto commitment to introduce a recognition mechanism to support those affected, directly based on the work kicked off in the Thames Valley.

Delegates will leave with practical insights into building responses to complex, under-recognised harm, and a clearer understanding of how data, leadership, and professional curiosity can combine to make vulnerable children visible.

- Learn more about the issue that is parental imprisonment - Understand how the police used data solutions to recognise children affected by parental imprisonment - Discuss opportunities to identify and tackle other forms of harm by better integrating data from public sector organisations