A PROGRAMME to help newly released offenders is seeking more money to continue beyond its initial three-year run.
City homeless and vulnerable people's charity Emmanuel House has a programme which supports offenders released from Nottingham Prison.
The programme, which started with three years' funding in January 2012, has so far dealt with nearly 200 referrals. Part of its remit when it began was to help at least 180 newly released offenders in the entire three years.
"It has been extremely successful," said Emmanuel House chief executive officer Ruth Shelton. "There are people who have been persistent re-offenders who have stayed out."
As already strained facilities for vulnerable people have been cut, the job has not been without frustrations.
"Most (referrals) are for people who are seeking accommodation, of which there isn't any in Nottingham," offender support officer Rebecca Sharpe said. "So that is a challenge."
But amid challenge, there have been successes.
When someone is released from Nottingham Prison, he is given £46. With a typical three-to-six week wait for any sort of benefits – and with little hope of finding work – that £46 has to stretch a long way. Thus the first few days out can be among the most dangerous for former offenders falling back into crime.
That's where the programme comes in.
"I pick people up at the gate on their day of release," Ms Sharpe said. "I wait for them.
"I'm walking through the gate with them; I'm supporting them from the minute they get out of prison.
"From that prison gate meeting, we try to help them immediately into housing and other help."
She's been working with one former offender since November. Initially, she got him into housing association housing. He left and was on the street for a time, but she tracked him down and got him into private landlord accommodation.
Now she sees him every day. He'll soon go into detox, then residential rehabilitation in Oxfordshire.
Some former offenders come into Emmanuel House, others she visits.
"It's practical work as well as psychological," she said.
Now Emmanuel House is seeking to prove some of the programme's more practical benefits – namely, that it helps save taxpayer money by keeping people from re-offending and going back to prison.
"We're going to undertake a major impact evaluation of the project on, among other things, re-offending," Ms Shelton said.
"We know (it works) in an anecdotal sense with individuals. We will be looking at it in a more rigorous way."
That more rigorous look will be vital with Lottery funding coming to an end. Emmanuel House will apply to grant-making bodies, and look to business partners and other agencies in the community.
They hope to impress groups with a programme that aims to be one piece in a larger puzzle of serious problems in the city.
"This work is in line with Nottingham City Council's homelessness prevention strategy, which has a substantial focus on preventing re-offending, and also with dealing with housing issues," Ms Shelton said.
"We want to make sure we can continue to get to former offenders right at the moment that they're standing on Perry Road with £46 in their pockets.
"This project effectively intervenes with that cycle."
