Who Are We
Families Outside is a Scottish charity that helps hundreds of families each year through the Support & Information Helpline. We work to mitigate the effects of imprisonment on children and families and consequently to reduce the likelihood of reoffending through support and information for families and for the people who work with them.
Why Are We Here?
Imprisonment can be a traumatic experience for families, and its impact is often significant and enduring. This can include:
- Risk to housing;
- Financial pressures;
- Problems in caring for children and the impact on the 16,500 children who lose a parent to imprisonment each year;
- Anxiety, distress and health problems;
- Rejection, stigma, and victimsation by neighbours and the community.
Families affected by imprisonment face a process of grief and readjustment throughout the course of arrest, trial, imprisonment and release. They often have difficulty getting the information and support they need to make them feel in control during periods of crisis and stress.
How are we funded?
Families Outside receives its funding from a number of different sources. These include Government, trusts, research income, general donations and conference fees. Recent years have seen a move away from heavy reliance on Government funding towards support from private charitable trusts. However, although this is a healthy development, Families Outside still remains reliant on financial support from the Government in order to achieve its organisational objectives.
We have provided funding graphs for the last three financial years which illustrate this trend. Please click here to view our funding strands.
Families Outside Team
Dr Nancy Loucks - Chief Executive
Elaine Stalker - Support & Development Manager/Regional Co'nator/Helpline W'ker
Fiona Allan - Support & Development Coordinator/Regional Co'nator/Helpline W'ker
Susan Cross - Regional Coordinator/Helpline Worker
Tracey Burns - Family Support Coordinator
Kerry Knox - Family Support Worker
Jonathan Goodfellow - Administrator
Families Outside Board of Trustees
Gillian Stewart, CB – Chairman of Families Outside, ex-civil servant highly experienced in charitable Boards, especially those working with vulnerable children (e.g. Barnardo’s and Action for Children).
Donald Millar – Vice-Chairman, recently retired Assistant Criminal Justice Manager (Social Work) at Edinburgh City Council.
Jennifer Stevenson – Treasurer and qualified chartered accountant.
Stephen Swan – Scottish Prison Service’s Director of Human Resources with an extensive background in the prison service having worked in various departments at headquarters and as a Governor-In-Charge at various establishments.
Paul Carberry – Operational Director of Children’s Services with Action for Children, able to advise on a number of issues including the child aspect of families affected by imprisonment.
Marjory Russell, OBE – member of the Joint Faiths Advisory Board for Criminal Justice.
Katrina Gordon – Families representative (key client group) and member of the Family Support Group (peer support) at the Edinburgh Prison Visitors’ Centre.
Chris Sheldon – senior solicitor with expertise in charity law.
Sheila Gupta – director of Human Resources for the University of Edinburgh.
Hear the voices of families affected by imprisonment
Conference 2009 - Step By Step
These audio files contain the voices of three family members voices telling of their experience during arrest, court and release & resettlement.
- High Quality Arrest | 1.6meg
- High Quality Court | 2.0meg
- High Quality Release & Resettlement | 1.8meg
Conference 2006 - Playing Our Part
This audio file contains reflections on the experience of having a substance misusing member of the family go to prison.
- Low Quality playing_our_part_24kbps_m.mp3 | 4.1meg
- High Quality playing_our_part_64kbps_s.mp3 | 10.9meg
To read each of the family members' words, please download the Adobe pdf transcript.
Conference 2004 - Adjusting, adjusting, readjusting
This audio file contains the voices of families talking about their journey through the experience of having relative in prison.
- Low Quality journey_24kbps_m.mp3 | 0.4meg
- High Quality journey_64kbps_s.mp3 | 1.2meg
Click one of the links to play the audio file, or you can right-click and select 'Save Target As...' to download to your computer.