Directory

2makeit helps in prisoner and ex-prisoner rehabilitation by providing opportunities for creative expression through music and the arts. Our programmes aim to increase confidence, self-esteem and ability to work with others via a creative environment. Our work continues in the community: just ‘being there’ for a conversation when needed, mentoring and continuing creative activities. Prison projects include choirs, drum workshops, art and poetry. The pandemic was the spur for innovative development, changing our delivery in prisons, adapting our support work in the community. With social enterprise partner, Pictora, 2makeit has developed 2019 art project, Made Visible, to take different creative activities into prisons and community. We have also created ‘Songbird’, an in-cell songwriting project, offering opportunities to maintain connections with families. We have resumed in-person work in prisons and can now offer an extended repertoire for our work in the community and in prisons.

BLAST Foundation is a Christian "Through The Gate" Resettlement organisation, working with prisoners and ex-offenders and their families of all faiths and no faiths. BLAST aim to be provider of choice, for prisons and probation trusts wishing to reduce recidivism and improve resettlement for prison inmates who want to transform their lives and break their cycle of re-offending. BLAST achieves this through our transformation, employability & business programmes delivered in prison. These programmes combine and are supported by BLASTs mentor and resettlement services, to support ex-offenders and their families in the difficult task of re-integrating in society

Criminon UK is a registered charity delivering distance learning life skills courses in many UK prisons. We are members of LASER Learning Awards (formerly the Open College Network South East Region), and have four courses accredited. Our accredited course "Understanding and Overcoming Addiction", aligns with learning outcomes of the NOCN National Qualification Unit's 'Introduction to Drug Awareness', Level 1. Our other accredited courses deal with literacy at Entry Level 2 and Level 1 and a simple guide to better living and self-respect at Entry Level 2. Further life skills courses we offer deal with Parenting, Communication and Personal Integrity. We also offer a Mentor Course which gives the offender the skills to help others with their literacy and allows them to give something back, helping them achieve greater confidence and self-respect.

Since 1885, Forces Employment Charity's aim has been to help those leaving and those who have left the Armed Forces to find and to remain in employment throughout their working lives. We aim to make the client 'Job Ready' by signposting them to bespoke support required using our Project Nova network of support and tracking this via our Nova Support team prior to finding them the right employment choice.
Project Nova is an early intervention scheme working in conjunction mainly with the Police and NHS dealing with Ex Military personnel who have been arrested or are on the periphery of doing so. Project Nova works with many partner organisations including HMPPS & CRCs and local authorities along with numerous military charities.

Geese Theatre Company is a team of professional theatre practitioners who present interactive drama and facilitate workshops, staff training and consultation in prisons, secure mental health settings, young offender institutions, and in the community with probation services, youth offending teams and related agencies. A registered charity based in Birmingham, Geese works throughout the UK and overseas and has gained an international reputation for innovative work with vulnerable and socially excluded groups, becoming widely acknowledged as one of the key organisations championing the role of arts in the criminal justice system and wider social welfare arena. Our work provides solutions to a range of criminogenic issues, primarily focussing on attitudes, thinking and behaviour and addressing themes such as domestic abuse, sexual offending, violence, resettlement, substance misuse and offending, self-efficacy, and employability.

Pact is a pioneering national charity that supports prisoners, people with convictions, and their children and families. We provide caring and life-changing services at every stage of the criminal justice process: in court, in prison, on release, and in the community, based on a public health model of practice.

We work in more than 60 prisons and provide prison-based family engagement and social workers, Visitors’ Centres, visitor support, supervised play, catering, family activities, relationship and parenting education programmes, court and community family support, resettlement support and community-based mentoring and befriending programmes. Our volunteers and staff can be found in courts, prisons, probation services, and in communities across England & Wales.

We also run the HMPPS contracted national Prisoners' Families Helpline which can be reached seven days a week on 0808 808 2003.

The PPT supports prisoners, ex-prisoners and prison staff in their spiritual lives through meditation, yoga, silence and the breath. We recommend breath-focussed stretches and meditation sensitively tailored to students' needs. To this end, we send free books and a CD to prisoners so they can start a practice in their cell, we have a team of specially trained volunteer letter writers who correspond with prisoners who want support in their practice; we offer taster workshops so prisons can judge if they want to include weekly yoga classes as part of their regimes; and we train qualified yoga teachers for the specific challenges of working in prison.

There are currently 143 weekly yoga and meditation classes in 75 institutions across the UK and Ireland. Most of these are prisons, though we also work in approved premises, IRCs and secure hospitals. 32 of these classes are for prison officers and staff.

We maintain contact with over 5,766 prisoners in 223 institutions.

Prison Reading Groups helps to set up and run reading groups in prisons. It runs groups in over 40 prisons, providing funding for books and helping find volunteers. It also provides books for Family Visit Days. It is part of the charity Give a Book.

Shannon Trust is a national charity supporting people in the criminal justice system to learn to read, and improve other basic skills. Currently, 62% of people that end up in prison either can't read or struggle to. Shannon Trust inspires and trains prisoners who can read to teach prisoners who can’t, so they're better set up for a positive future. We also support people in prison with basic maths.

In the community, we work with partner organisations supporting people to learn to read in the same peer-led way.

Established in 2000, Synergy Theatre Project works with prisoners, ex-prisoners and young people at risk, towards rehabilitation, through theatre and related activities, while placing the wider issues surrounding criminal justice in the public arena.