DARTMOOR Prison is to benefit from cash announced by the Home Office last week to enhance relationships between prisoners and their families.
The Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) has secured more than £300,000 to run a support service for prisoners? families around Dartmoor, Channings Wood and Exeter prisons.
The South West project aims to fill a gap in services which has left families feeling isolated and marginalised.
Dartmoor Prison is making great strides in preparing prisoners for their return to society with its resettlement centre. Maintaining families? links plays a large part in this.
A visitors? centre, where families can wait and relax in comfortable surroundings and gain support and advice, has been well received at Dartmoor and Exeter. This latest cash will provide a new visitors? centre for families of Channings Wood prisoners.
Research has found that a prisoner returning to the support of his/her family is six times less likely to re-offend, but currently more than 40% of prisoners say they have lost contact with their families while in prison. Some 125,000 children are affected by imprisonment each year.
Family support workers will be based at Plymouth and Exeter to work with families of prisoners from all three establishments. They will cover issues such as debt, bullying, housing problems and rejection in the community.
They will also be backed by volunteers and mentors, many of whom have served a prison sentence themselves and are retraining.
Speaking at Dartmoor Prison following the announcement of the Home Office funding last Wednesday, PACT South West Development worker Suzanne Caley said unfortunately prison visitor numbers were falling nationally.
She said: ?We want to make visits easier and more pleasant because at the moment just booking a visit is difficult in itself.
?The average distance family members travel to see a prisoner at Dartmoor is 125 miles one-way and that causes great problems.?
Family days where fathers could spend six hours with their wives or partners and children had been piloted at the prison and would be repeated. There would be play projects and relationship courses.
?Partners are currently allowed to sit with prisoners for two hours in the morning but are then ordered out and have to walk around Princetown for two hours before they are allowed back in,? added Mrs Caley.
?On family days we have a buffet in the prison which everyone can share and at Christmas we had an artist in to work with the children, and Father Christmas paid a visit.?
Former prisoner Karen, who is now training as a volunteer, said she lost everything after she was convicted, including her three children, her self-respect and confidence.
?Coming out you have to face all these problems like finding somewhere to live, a job and just being able to walk down the street without thinking everybody is looking at you.?
Karen, who has since been reunited with her children, said she could understand why people re-offended because there had been no support network in the past: ?A project like this is so important and the Prison Advice and Care Trust is an organisation built around empathy and understanding. It is about empowering people to take charge of their lives for the better.?