Partnership Finder

Career Connect is a charity whose core business is the provision of all-age careers information, advice, guidance and support. We enable people to make realistic choices, based on sound information, to help them achieve their potential in learning, training and employment. Established in 2001, we deliver services across NW England providing: The National Careers Service across NW NOMS CFO 3 contract for NW of England through our wholly owned subsidiary Achieve NW Connect. We deliver a programme that prepares and supports offenders into employment with a 32% sustained outcome rate. Careers information, advice and guidance services for young people (formerly badged as Connexions) across Greater Merseyside and Salford. Unlocking Potentiala social impact bond funded programme to support 4200 young people with behavioural, moderate mental health and wellbeing issues prepare for and enter the world of work. We also have staff embedded in Trouble Families teams and an adviser in Hindley YOI.

Caritas Care's ACE (Assisted Community Engagement) Project provides an assisted seamless transition from custody to community and reduces the risk of reoffending by ensuring that essential needs are met without it being necessary to revert to a life of crime. Support is provided by volunteers and paid staff to address their needs, as identified by NOMS.

Criminon UK is a registered charity delivering distance learning life skills courses in many UK prisons. We are members of LASER Learning Awards (formerly the Open College Network South East Region), and have four courses accredited. Our accredited course "Understanding and Overcoming Addiction", aligns with learning outcomes of the NOCN National Qualification Unit's 'Introduction to Drug Awareness', Level 1. Our other accredited courses deal with literacy at Entry Level 2 and Level 1 and a simple guide to better living and self-respect at Entry Level 2. Further life skills courses we offer deal with Parenting, Communication and Personal Integrity. We also offer a Mentor Course which gives the offender the skills to help others with their literacy and allows them to give something back, helping them achieve greater confidence and self-respect.

Geese Theatre Company is a team of professional theatre practitioners who present interactive drama and facilitate workshops, staff training and consultation in prisons, secure mental health settings, young offender institutions, and in the community with probation services, youth offending teams and related agencies. A registered charity based in Birmingham, Geese works throughout the UK and overseas and has gained an international reputation for innovative work with vulnerable and socially excluded groups, becoming widely acknowledged as one of the key organisations championing the role of arts in the criminal justice system and wider social welfare arena. Our work provides solutions to a range of criminogenic issues, primarily focussing on attitudes, thinking and behaviour and addressing themes such as domestic abuse, sexual offending, violence, resettlement, substance misuse and offending, self-efficacy, and employability.

Our vision is for people of all ages to be safe, building ambitions for the future and reaching towards their full potential.

Our Mission -
Humankind creates services and support to meet people’s complex health and social needs, helping them to build healthier lives that have meaning and value for themselves and their families. We support local people to create stronger, better-connected communities.

Our Values -
Honest: We are open and realistic, building trusted relationships in which we challenge, collaborate and change
Committed: we are passionate about being the best that we can be, and we do this by keeping people at the heart of everything that we do
Inventive: we are ambitious, drawing together skills and resources to innovate and adapt in determined pursuit of our mission.

Challenge to Change (C2C), designed and developed by Kainos Community, is a 6 month CSAAP accredited programme currently delivered in 3 adult male prisons. The programme encourages and supports individuals in addressing their offending, associated distorted thinking and anti-social behaviour, promoting and facilitating the transformation to a more purposeful, pro-social life.

Independent research has evidenced C2C to be very effective (Ellis 2012): After 1 year, 84% of Kainos graduates had not reoffended and of those that did, the frequency of their offending had been reduced significantly compared to a matched comparison group.

Although developed and accredited as a custodial intervention, the programme principles and design are applicable to offenders and ex-offenders in different settings.

Kainos is now part of the Langley House Trust group, a long established provider of accommodation based services. This merger provides for a unique pathway from prison to community.

No Offence! facilitates open access to and exchange of crime and justice information, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

No Offence! is a social enterprise, community interest company, not driven by private profit.

Our innovative and engaging approach facilitates the sharing of this information by instigating, supporting and encouraging communication and debate, which promotes wider understanding of complex criminal justice issues across society. By challenging barriers to positive change and influencing future policy, our objective is simple: to make a difference.

We have created a criminal justice information exchange service, which has become a centre for excellence, for the significant benefit of all who engage within the criminal justice sector.

Prison Fellowship aims to support prisoners by coming alongside them and supporting them through practical programmes and prayer.

We seek to help, support and develop a Christian ministry to prisoners through Sycamore Tree, our victim awareness programme; Angel Tree, where we support prisoner's children at Christmas; Letter Writing and other practical support through chaplaincy.

We do this through our network of volunteer members, and currently have over 1,800 members across England and Wales.

We make it possible for volunteers in the community to write letters to prisoners, and to receive letters in return, and to do so in safety.

The Prisoners' Advice Service provides free legal advice and representation to adult prisoners in England and Wales regarding their rights, and regardless of the individual prisoners' means. PAS aims to educate and empower prisoners regarding the law and their legal and human rights.

REACH INSIDE is a charity that has been set up to help friends and family members of prisoners to REACH INSIDE and communicate easily with their loved ones.
Our POST–2–PRISON project allows anyone with online access to send a photo and a message to any UK prisoner completely free of charge.
All you need to do is visit our website (its mobile friendly too) and send your message, we will then print it and post it directly into prison.

Restorative Solutions is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) committed to enabling the use of innovative restorative approaches as a practical and cost-effective intervention for reducing harm or conflict.
We introduce restorative practices to organisations, volunteers and front line workers who are looking for a proven and worthwhile alternative to existing conventional approaches to reducing conflict, disputes, anti-social behaviour, bullying, crime and re-offending. We deliver bespoke, commissioned Restorative Justice services to organisations.

Restorative Thinking is a Social Enterprise. We work with Prison and Probation Services, PCCs and Youth Offending Services to implement and develop restorative ways of working. Our input ranges from restorative training and whole organisational culture change to delivery of our evidence-based restorative intervention programmes.

During COVID 19, we are looking for partners to develop a digital learning platform for our evidence-based restorative and relational intervention programmes.

RT is a restorative organisation, proud recipients of the RSQM and the TPQM.

Recent projects include:

1) HMPPS funded pilot to rigorously test restorative practice as a means of fostering inclusive residential environments in Approved Premises (Midlands, NE Divisions)
2) County wide delivery of restorative domestic abuse perpetrator programme (Cumbria PCC), independent evaluation available on request.

Samaritans provides confidential emotional support to prisoners, either by telephone or face-to-face. The organisation also selects, trains and supports prisoners, known as Listeners, to offer confidential, emotional support to their fellow-inmates.

Shannon Trust is a national charity supporting thousands of prisoners a year to transform their lives by unlocking the power of reading. 50% of people that end up in prison either can't read or struggle to: their life chances are limited from the word go. Shannon Trust inspires and trains prisoners who can read to teach prisoners who can’t, so they're better set up for a positive future.

We also work with partner organisations in the community, supporting prison leavers and others to learn to read.

Established in 2000, Synergy Theatre Project works with prisoners, ex-prisoners and young people at risk, towards rehabilitation, through theatre and related activities, while placing the wider issues surrounding criminal justice in the public arena.

The Irene Taylor Trust 'Music in Prisons' delivers creative music projects which focus on the creation of new and innovative music. Projects are accessible to everyone regardless of musical experience, and aim to raise the self-confidence and aspirations of men, women and young people in prisons and those in the community who may be at risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system.

Unlock is an independent award-winning national charity that provides a voice and support for people with convictions who are facing stigma and obstacles because of their criminal record, often long after they have served their sentence.

Firstly, we help people. We provide information, advice and support to people with convictions, including running an information site and confidential peer-run helpline. We help practitioners support people with convictions by providing criminal record disclosure training. And we support employers and universities in treating people with criminal records fairly.

Secondly, we advocate for change, working at policy level to address systemic and structural issues. We listen to and consult with people with criminal records, undertake research and produce evidence-based reports to inform policy makers and the public. We challenge bad practice, influence attitudes and speak truth to power. We co-founded and support the Ban the Box campaign.