St Giles has been awarded funding from the £20 million Shared Outcomes Fund initiative which works across sectors to test new ways to break the cycle of crime.

The Local Leadership and Integration Fund, launched by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), is funding local partnerships to improve services that reduce reoffending in their area.

Following the second round of the grant funding, the MOJ has now awarded £456,558.30 to St Giles, in partnership with Touchstone, West Yorkshire Community Chaplaincy, and Wakefield Council’s Liaison and Diversion Service.

The project will see St Giles  providing short term housing solutions and mental health support for offenders in Yorkshire with complex needs who are released on a Friday, when other services are shut.

This programme builds on existing services run at St Giles Yorkshire. St Giles already works in prisons to strengthen prisoners’ family ties in order to prevent reoffending and reduce intergenerational crime.

Using a ‘whole family’, through the gate support, St Giles uses a peer-led approach to help those in the community maintain a stable home life, and to help prisoners to be an active family member and parent, first while serving their sentence and then beyond their release.

St Giles has a long history of helping prison leavers access employment and training opportunities whilst offering added help from a mentor to help them stay on track.

St Giles Yorkshire Assistant Manager Kelly Ormston said:

Many people released from prison on a Friday face a tough challenge to get all the support that they need in place before the weekend. Getting all the correct support in place is especially difficult on a Friday, so funding for this exciting project is hugely welcome.

Many of the staff who will be providing this work are former prison leavers themselves who are now professionally trained to use their skills and lived experience to inspire others to make similar changes.  The approach is rooted in our long-held belief that ex-offenders can play an active role in their own rehabilitation and that those who have been there themselves are best placed to really understand what is needed to help achieve this.

Find out more about St Giles’s work in Yorkshire  here.