November Event - Feedback
The Families Outside Partners and Progress Day took place at the City Chambers in Glasgow on 23 November 2007 and was attended by over 140 people. Attendees included families of prisoners but also a wide range of professionals including Social Work Workers, Addiction Workers, Nursing staff and Scottish Prisoner Service (SPS) personnel.
The event was also an opportunity to introduce Sean McCollum, the new Director at Families Outside, who commenced duties on 8 October. Sean’s presentation reviewed research which clearly demonstrated that supportive family contact with offenders during and post imprisonment is linked to reductions in offending. Other presentations included a description of the excellent interventions being implemented by SPS in relation to substance misuse and an update on the groundbreaking work being undertaken by SPS, the Wise Group, Families Outside and Relate through the Routes out of Prison (RooP) Project.
The main theme to emerge from the day was that families are underutilised in terms of their potential impact on reducing offending despite research showing that supportive family contact can reduce offending. Families Outside wishes to ensure that the potential role of families in reducing offending is recognised and utilised at strategic and operational level within the criminal justice system.
A key objective emerging from the event for Families Outside is to seek to ensure that the families of prisoners receive adequate support which will in turn assist them to help their loved ones to reduce and cease offending.