Our Family Support is now Scotland-wide
Families Outside now provide direct support to families affected by imprisonment throughout Scotland
From November 2010, Families Outside will be able to offer direct support to families affected by imprisonment throughout Scotland for the first time. Our existing service, provided by only two staff, covers Lothian & Borders, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, North Strathclyde and South West Scotland Community Justice Authority (CJA) areas. An increase in funding to the Routes Out Of Prison (ROOP) project from The Big Lottery enabled us to allocate a second staff member to ROOP part-time, supplementing the family support work we already carry out for them. The other half of this post, funded by the Robertson Trust, provides Regional Coordination and Family Support in the South West and North Strathclyde CJAs.
This extension of funding also allows our staff to support families from a prisoner’s entry into custody rather than after he or she signs up to ROOP. We will therefore strive to work more closely with other family support organisations to ensure caseloads remain manageable and that referrals are directed between organisations appropriately.
In Northern and Tayside CJAs, Charlene Kenny will take up post as Regional Support Coordinator. From November, Crossreach will contract her services part-time for the Perth Prison Visitors’ Centre, with the remaining half of her post funded by the Robertson Trust and covering Regional Coordination and Family Support elsewhere in the two regions. Charlene curretnly works at Rossie secure unit. She has an honours degree in psychology with experience in risk assessment and pyschological applications such as cognitive behavioural programmes. She previously worked with Apex Scotland as an employment development advisor and for the NHS as an assistant forensic psychologist.
Families Outside has been striving to achieve Scotland-wide direct family support for the last two years, and we are delighted to have finally accomplished this. We also welcome Charlene to the team and look forward to working with her.