Community support after contact with the criminal justice system

With the prison population expected to rise beyond 100,000 by 2014, and with the majority of the prisoners experiencing high levels of mental distress, the need for improvements in recognising and treating mental illness within the criminal justice system is undeniable. Our involvement in the development of Lord Bradley's review of people with mental illness or learning disabilities in the criminal justice system and subsequent delivery plans reflect this need, as does the subsequent Ministry of Justice's Green Paper.

We provide services across the criminal justice spectrum to support those with mental health problems and their families. The overall aim is to reduce reoffending and improve health and wellbeing outcomes for this group. As well as providing services as part of the mental health clinical pathway within prisons; we provide a range of support in the community.

• Court/ pre-prison - liaison and diversion. The court process can be confusing and overwhelming for the families and carers of people with mental illness. We provide two court-based Community Advice and Support Services in Plymouth, Bodmin and Truro. We provide advice and support in courts to offenders and their families to aid resettlement and reintegration, with the aim of reducing offending. Our support is integral to the successful operating of Community Justice courts in Plymouth, taking a problem-solving approach and working in partnership with designated police and probation officers. We ensure that families and partners of prisoners are assisted at the point of sentence so they understand more about the court and prison systems and are better able to keep in touch. We continue to work with offenders afterwards, providing an open door and signposting people to other support services.
•  Resettlement. Our services in Hove, Gateshead and Wakefield provide support to individuals leaving prison, forensic psychiatric institutions or those identified at court as in need of mental health support. We offer practical and emotional support, and referrals to existing resources as well as assistance with budgeting, healthy living, occupational and employment opportunities. We also provide liaison and advocacy work. Our floating support service in Gateshead is specifically targeted at people currently under the supervision of the National Probation Service who have a diagnosed mental health issue or history of chronic mental health issues. This includes people who are difficult to house due to their complex lifestyles or challenging behaviour or who are high risk or difficult to manage due to their presenting problems. They are likely to have a history of difficulties in maintaining or securing their own tenancies and require acess to floating support, health services and probation in order to improve their chances of successfully managing a tenancy in the community. This floating support service helps offenders to achieve a measure of financial support and to have increased choice and control over their lives in a safe environment, free from discrimination and harassment. We provide timely support, sensitive to individual needs, which enables people who use the service to live in their own homes and to be usupported into employment, These ex-offenders are supported to make a positive contribution to society therefore reducing admissions to secure settings.
• Community sentence / probation. Our service in Torquay, commissioned by the Probation Service and Supporting People, provides emotional well-being support for people on a community sentence or released on licence in Torbay and South Devon. The aim is to reduce reoffending and help people to maintain their tenancies by providing emotional well-being support on probation. Referrals are made by Offender Managers with the agreement of the person being referred to the service. The service works with individulas to draw up a support plan to help them acheive their identified goals, and offers: - one-to-one work; referral to other specialist agencies, e.g. for counselling or benefits/ debt advice, helping with forms, helping the individual to identify where else they can get support.

All our services are continually evaluated to ensure they provide outcomes which both reduce re-offending and improve health and wellbeing. Since our Gateshead floating support service started in April 2009 only 2 out of 21 users of the service have re-offended and have been charged, one with a prison sentence and one with a community service order. This compares with the national statistic of 39.3% of offenders who were re-convicted in 2009.