Families Outside

Families Outside is the only national charity in Scotland that works solely to support the families of people involved in the criminal justice system. The core of our work is the Scottish Prisoners’ Families Helpline, which receives almost 2,000 calls every year from families and from criminal justice professionals alike. We also take an active role in supporting the work of locally-based service providers through information and advocacy and spend much of our time raising the profile of this issue. This includes active participation in a range of policy and development groups such as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s National Advisory Body on the Management of Offenders and the Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice. Our work includes development of a support and information pack for families and prison staff following a death in custody, writing and disseminating information leaflets for families about various aspects of the criminal justice process, and ongoing development of information booklets and a web site for children. We also created a training DVD about the experiences of children with a family member in prison, in collaboration with the Centre for Inclusion and Equity in Education.