How does your service measure up?

Your service – how can you better help ex-prisoners?

Your service will already have expertise in helping the disadvantaged – people dealing with drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness, domestic violence or other issues. Ex-prisoners are essentially no different; they have a similar range of problems, and what they need above all is regular housing so they can sort themselves out.

To help them you need to treat them the same as your regular clients. But there are some useful points to consider when trying to deal specifically with ex-prisoners.

Individual workers at your service
Consider:

• What skills and training could you do that would help you work with this target group?
• What resources could you access that would help you?
• What guidance from fellow workers is available to help you?
• Do you feel comfortable working with ex-prisoners? If not what would help you to change this?

Your organisation as a whole
Consider:

• Does your assessment and intake process deliberately or accidentally exclude ex-prisoners?
• Does your organisation have policies that discriminate against ex-prisoners?
• Does your organisation understand the complexities of the issues workers face every day when working with clients such as these?
• Does your organisation have policies and procedures that reflect the work you do?
• Do staff have input into the development of policies and procedures and the direct work of the organisation?
• How could you go about creating change in your organisation to better assist this group? Who would you need to talk to? Who would support you?

CRC can provide the skills you need

Community Restorative Centre (CRC) runs a one-day course that can help workers and service organisations gain skills in dealing with ex-prisoners and meeting their needs. We’ve had extensive experience working with ex-prisoners and can give you lots of ideas on how to help them get back on their feet.