Suicide and Criminal Justice
Prison suicides in England and Wales have risen to the highest level for seven years with 82 prisoners taking their own lives last year, according to new figures.
For the year 2016/2017, The NHS Joint Commissioning Team for Mental Health in Birmingham has invested in a number of one-year pilot programmes that aim to promote wellbeing, improve quality of life and life opportunities for those most vulnerable in Birmingham. This work, being managed as a whole by Common Unity, comes under the umbrella name of Connecting Community Networks being an accepted, locally designed framework that oversees the delivery of much needed holistic services that has real, evidenced based wellbeing benefits to the most vulnerable sectors within our city.
Funding for the delivery of a 6-week Peer Support Based ManMade Programme within the criminal justice sector has been realised with HMP Birmingham being the focus for such a pilot using key elements of the tested and evaluated ManMade Programme implemented to date in Sandwell and Dudley. The ManMade Programme for Criminal Justice, utilising Associates who have delivered ManMade to date and a Community Development Worker, will look to work closely alongside existent service provision within HMP Birmingham including HealthCare and CRC delivery agents, to best support prisoners who are soon to be released back into the community. The proposed cohort is a maximum of 15 participants with anticipated delivery being November – December 2016 for a period of 6 weeks (2 hours per session).
Overarching Aims:
- Increase resilience and wellbeing over the period of implementation.
- Reduce the suicide risk on release from prison.
The programme will look to achieve this through:
- Providing a safe and supportive space for delegates to express feelings and learn about mental health and wellbeing
- Empowering men to better understand themselves and their own mental health and wellbeing.
- Equipping men with the skills, tools, information and options to manage their mental health and wellbeing.
- A dedicated community based professional support assisting each delegate to view wider opportunities for enhanced wellbeing in the community alongside the existent support opportunities currently in place through CRC.
Target Group:
Prisoners who are soon expected to be released back into the community with one or more of the following criteria:
- History of self-harm
- History of relationship issues
- History of substance misuse (but have effective support in place)
- Prisoners who will be on a ‘Licensed Recall.’