Grant awards totalling £360,000 from the LHF has allowed the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) to help keep families together when one member is in prison.

Andy Keen-Downs of Pact said “All the evidence shows that if we can help keep families together and supporting each other, then the risk of reoffending is massively reduced.  Our staff, partly paid for by the grant from the LHF, help people stay in touch when someone is serving a prison sentence.”

The Pact team work with families and prisoners at the earliest opportunity ensuring housing needs are identified and resolved so that the family retain their home – a significant proportion of families are forced to move when a loved one goes into prison.  Our team also help make and maintain contact so that the prisoner has a home (and a family) to return to through case management, running parenting course and offering mediation as well as linking prisoners and their families to other support services.

A recent evaluation report on the project by the independent New Economics Foundation shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, over £11 is saved for the state.

One family member helped by the staff at Pact said “It is a really difficult time when someone you care for is in prison – practically and emotionally.  I am really grateful to everyone at Pact who helped keep my family together.”

Don Wood, Executive Chairman of the LHF said “This innovative and exciting scheme is making a genuine difference to people in great need.  It is good for the families, the prisoners  and the rest of society.  We are very proud to say we started funding them as a pilot project in 2010 and have now committed further funding till 2015.”