Directory

Established in 1981, The Rainbow Project is a charity providing a range of services to vulnerable and disadvantaged young people in and around Southampton.

Rainbow currently provides:
A mentoring service called Moving 4ward and in July 2012 launched a new Life Chances supported employment service.

We’re a national charity that wants to bring about a reading revolution so that everyone can experience and enjoy great literature, which we believe is a tool for helping humans survive and live well.

Through a growing movement of 1,000 volunteers and partners across different sectors, we currently bring over 2,500 people together each week to share and discuss great novels, plays and poems. We call this Shared Reading.

By reading with families, adults, looked after children, older people in care, adults with physical and/or mental health conditions, people coping with addiction and individuals in the criminal justice system, our work is helping to improve wellbeing, reduce isolation and build stronger communities.

Currently working in 35 prisons and approved premises, we reach 650 people each week:
77% report improved wellbeing
67% report improved confidence
64% say Shared Reading helps them understand themselves better and connect to others in a deeper way

The Reasons Why Foundation provides a Behavioural Change Mentoring service to people with criminal convictions across the London region.
Our individualised support packages, empower our service users to achieve their potential and lead positive and productive lives. We help our mentees to find employment, apprenticeships, training and education.
We look at the causes and effects of attitude, behaviour and actions, highlighting potential areas of harmful/negative impact on their development. We look for the Reasons Why people offend and help them to find their own alternatives which do not carry negative outcomes with them.
We offer people the opportunity to share their own thoughts, beliefs and experiences in a safe environment, in complete confidence where they know they are being listened to and actually heard. This is a vital component.

The Recruitment Junction is a recruitment agency for ex-offenders. We are a not-for-profit enterprise with a social heart, on a commercial mission. Our vision is to see people with convictions rediscover a sense of purpose through employment and become role models who drive positive generational impact across their families.

The Restore Trust believe in a fair society where socially excluded people are supported to obtain skills, qualifications and employment to build sustainable, independent lives contributing positively to society.
At its foundation, The Restore Trust was set up in 2009 by the current CEO Suzanne Thompson and SMT board of Avon & Somerset Probation Trust, in conjunction with the National Offender Management Service. The organisation was registered as an independent VCSE in 2010 and is managed by an excellent board of trustees. Whilst the organisation retains a specialism in working with people with complex needs and criminal convictions, it can work with anyone in the community who is experiencing barriers in accessing training and employment.
Many of our clients have complex needs in relation to homelessness, mental health problems, drug/alcohol dependency and offending behaviour. We pride ourselves on our non-judgemental, person-centred approach in our work.

The aim of The Riverside Group is to transform lives and revitalise neighbourhoods. We view support in an integrated way across the services that provide the support people who are homeless need. People who are homeless often have complex needs crossing mental health, substance misuse, criminal justice and social care responsibilities. We will not stop people falling through the gaps into homelessness if we continue to only meet these needs through homeless specific services.

Our work in the criminal justice context focuses on training and consultancy for staff in the management of individuals that are deaf or hard of hearing. One in six people in the population has a hearing loss of some degree, creating communication barriers that can impact on behaviour, well-being and, at the profound end of the spectrum, access to rehabilitative services.

Action on Hearing Loss offer Deaf Awareness and Sign Language training courses to help prison or probation staff understand the needs of people with hearing loss. We provide professional communication support of all kinds - from sign language interpreters to notetakers - to enable access to service. Our products (assistive listening devices and alerters of all kinds) are available online or in bulk from a dedicated account manager. We also provide work based assessments for staff themselves, with cost-effective recommendations for reasonable adjustments to support them in the workplace.

Qualifications, achievement and progress are often only conventionally recognised. The Safe House supports people to do well, even if they are not ‘conventional’ themselves. The Safe House mission is to bring particular and specialist experience and expertise to supporting people who are disadvantaged by the demands of attending school, college or university and in achieving recognised qualifications.

Activity at The Safe House focuses on:

- advice and guidance for study, employment and empowerment.
- language, literacy and learning support.
- creative writing support.
- personal presentation skills development.
- stress-relief based therapy and counselling.
- teacher / facilitator workshops.
- books and online resources and opportunities.
- creative and innovative project development and delivery.

The Safety Box ® CIC programs are a refined system of training and development in helping young people and young adults develop important skills such as leadership, communication, team working, presentation, high risk conflict resolution, violence reduction, personal development and problem solving. We recognise that these are some of the essential keys to success. They open doors to learning, to life in addition to work. They are a platform on which to build employability skills and the gateway to future well-being and prosperity. The Safety Box employs an evidence-based model, proven to reduce violence in different cultural contexts. As an organisation we work with Prisons, YOIs, Pru's, Colleges and Schools prodomenently in the South East of England but have done work overseas, we aim to reduce violence and empower young people and adults through personal development and holistic transformational methodologies.

Family breakdown, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and drug and alcohol dependency are just some of the reasons why people can lose everything they value, including their dignity.

The Salvation Army has a long history of working with people who are vulnerable and marginalised across the world and offer very practical help, unconditional assistance and support regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

The Sapphire Employability and Wellbeing Academy (TSEAWA), rebranded in 2022 from the Sapphire Community Group, empowers individuals from racially marginalised and deprived communities of all ages through employability, wellbeing, and enrichment support. Our mission is to reduce mental health issues, homelessness, crime rates, and unemployment, while increasing education, training, and skills development. We mentor, coach, and provide resources to over 8,000 individuals, focusing on holistic support and early mental health interventions. Currently assisting 1,444 young people with plans to expand, we seek funding to continue offering accredited counseling services and meet rising demand.

We offer pastoral care and support to offenders/ex offenders. We provide peer group support and mentoring to ex offenders and people with mental health problems. This includes visiting prisons, mental health units. Supporting people in crises. We also try to encourage the quality of life of ex offenders by offering outings, walking, fishing, camping, and visiting places of interest as well as church services.

The Society is a diverse and innovative registered Housing Association working in Southampton, Portsmouth and across Hampshire, with experience in working in fields of homelessness, drug and alcohol misuse and mental health. We have a great track record of clients reducing or giving up substances.
Our current contracts are for the provision of treatment programs in Southampton, the HIOMS in Hampshire and a psycho-social and community rehab service in Portsmouth, We also provide specialist housing for offenders and a specialist team working with the CRC

We have great range of diversionary activities including partnership with local football clubs and a great volunteering scheme. We also have specialist housing for clients leaving prison with drugs issues, which has strong statistics in crime deduction.

We also have a range of hostels and other housing for people who are homeless or have substance misuse problems, including wet accommodation.

The SOFA Project is a reuse and recycling project which provides low-cost household items to low income groups, in doing so also providing environmental benefits. The placements that we give to offenders help us to achieve these aims.

A community chaplaincy resettlement project in Leicester supporting people in prison and helping ex-offenders resettle into the community after leaving prison.

We are part of Community Chaplaincy Association - https://www.communitychaplaincy.org.uk/

The project works with families affected through imprisonment by a trained Family Support worker specialising in supporting families. Families and children are the secondary victims of imprisonment and often the most disadvantaged group.

Specialist in BAME community Support.

Referral system – either self-referral or referred by partner organisations, services & families/friends.

We are the only organisation in Leicester to offer support to Muslim people in prison/leaving prison, their families and faith & spiritual needs.

Suited & Booted is a charity based near the City of London. Public agencies and charities refer homeless and vulnerable unemployed men to us, and we help them get into employment by providing them with a suit and other interview clothing and accessories donated by companies and professionals. We also offer our clients interview advice and help with their CV. Our clients come from a wide variety of backgrounds and situations, including prisoners awaiting release, men on probation and ex-offenders.

We are the leading provider of tax support within prisons. We are the only prison organisation that is a member of both the HMRC Individual Stakeholder Forum and the HMRC Voluntary Sector Tax Resolution Service (VSTRS). We specialise with prisoners that have tax issues, tax debt or simply need to file their self-assessment tax return.

The Traveller Movement (TM) is a national community development charity working to raise the capacity and social inclusion of the Gypsy and Traveller communities of Britain. TM has a two prong approach to its services and delivery. TM provide a range of capacity building and advocacy services directly to the Traveller and Gypsy communities, and equally engage in research, policy and voice.TM also act as a bridge builder, bringing the Gypsy and Traveller communities, service providers and policy makers together, thereby stimulating debate and promoting forward-looking strategies to promote increased race equality, civic engagement, inclusion, service provision and community cohesion.

We are a funder who provides grants to organisations working with young people who either already have a criminal conviction or who are at high risk of offending. Our grants aim to reduce re-offending rates amongst young people or reduce first offenses being committed.

The Upper Room has three linked projects and its mission statement is ‘improving lives’:

UR4Driving aims to reduce recidivism among 30 ex-offenders a year by teaching them to drive in return for 80 hours of voluntary work and. Since 2010, 166 people have obtained a licence, approximately half of them have found work but only 30% have re-offended after completing the course.

UR4Meals feeds 60-100 people, 5 days a week, as well as providing clothing and bedding, volunteer opportunities, support with health and housing and onward referrals.

UR4Jobs is a pioneering and multilingual employment support service for economic migrants. It aims to break their circuit of un-employability and homelessness by providing a personalised mix of administrative expertise, entry level skills training, bilingual counselling and access to jobs.