Financial wellbeing support for ex-prisoners

Aim

The funding will provide 1:1 advice and guidance on managing finances, and support to minimise societal exclusion and to help people cope.

Background

Prisoners Abroad is a human rights and welfare charity providing humanitarian aid, advice and emotional support to people affected by overseas imprisonment. We assist British citizens during their incarceration, when they return to the UK and need access to resettlement services, and we also support their family and friends throughout the trauma. 

We translate human rights law into practical life-saving actions by providing prisoners access to vitamins and essential food, emergency medical care, freepost envelopes to keep in touch with home and books and magazines to help sustain mental health. 

We also help family members affected by a loved one’s imprisonment by providing one to one support as well as hosting family support groups around the country and arranging overseas visits. 

Our work extends to a resettlement service that supports those who return back to the UK; we find them somewhere to stay, provide grants for food and travel, and help them take the vital steps to a new life.

Every year, many people are deported back to the UK after their sentence - often they have lived abroad for a number of years, sometimes decades, and arrive with nothing; no money, nowhere to sleep and very often no family or friends to call on for help. Our caseworkers support prisoners during their incarceration, and then prepare them for their return to the UK. 

A total of 339 ex-prisoners used the service last year. We have seen a steep increase in arrivals since the start of 2022.

Our project

Our resettlement service supports people on return to the UK after prison, we find them somewhere to stay, provide grants for food and travel, help them get access to the right benefits, healthcare, specialist training and employment services through our tailored training programme. 

Through this, beneficiaries increase their life choices through gaining the financial skills required for budgeting, to access online services, make more informed financial decisions, and improve their education and employment prospects.  

The funds raised from this project will be used to provide 1:1 advice and guidance on managing finances, to support and enhance our resettlement service.

Our guidance on managing finances will:

• offer advice on how to manage money after not having to make financial choices for some time (due to incarceration);
• explain the financial make up to someone with no bank account, and help them set one up;
• assist with financial inclusion and basic grants to bridge the gap;
• provide step by step advice on the complexities of budgeting and using tools to help such as budgeting apps;
• introduce the concept of ‘shopping around’;
• signpost to meal planning and energy saving advice.

This project is crucial to help people take control of their lives by giving them the tools for managing their financial wellbeing. It will help enhance the resettlement service that we offer to over 300 vulnerable people each year, helping them to become more independent.

Testimonial

Nathanial's Story -  on return from prison in Italy:

"From being really excited about being released in Italy and being able to reconnect with my family and friends, I found myself in the UK with no money, no contacts, no phone, no family. I spent the last 26 years in Italy and made my life there. This wasn’t the plan. I was totally lost. 

I left Terminal 3 of Heathrow and didn’t know where to go, or how to go about deciding what needed to be my next steps. I was eventually able to get in touch with my ex-wife and with Prisoners Abroad. It was a big comfort to meet Umme, my Resettlement Officer, a short while after arriving here. She put together a step-by-step programme detailing what I needed to do to get myself set up here and when I needed to do it – this was brilliant as it meant I could tackle the million things I needed to do – one step at a time.

When I returned I had lots of problems with my physical health so one of my and Umme's first priorities was to organise medical check-ups for me. I’m also now on Universal Credit which I wouldn’t have known existed without her and I’ve got my own bank account to pay out bills.

Prisoners Abroad has helped me to get beyond more barriers that you could imagine. They established me in this country and gave me a helping hand at the arrival of each new challenge.

After a rocky time it’s really nice to be able to say that, in general, I am now happy."

This project successfully funded on 23rd February 2023