Guidance

HMP Leicester Families and Significant Others Strategy

HMP Leicester’s family strategy outlines how we support prisoners in our care to develop meaningful and constructive relationships with their family or significant others.

• From: HM Prison and Probation Service
• Published: 30 October 2026

Applies to England and Wales

You can find visiting information and book a visit on the Leicester Prison main page.

Our commitment to you

HMP Leicester’s family offer is designed to respond to Lord Farmer’s reviews on the importance of families and other relationships to prisoners’ rehabilitation by strengthening family relationships as a core element of rehabilitation and reducing reoffending.

Our prison is committed to providing a welcoming, accessible, and responsive approach to family engagement, supported by effective infrastructure, staffing, and partnership working.

This includes a fit for purpose visitors’ centre, a modern and welcoming visits hall, the availability of extended visits, family learning opportunities and a gateway communication system to maintain family contact.

Family engagement is embedded as a priority, with support available on the same day where required, and delivery enhanced through collaboration with third party partners.

To ensure our offer remains effective and responsive, HMP Leicester adopts an evidence led approach to understanding prisoner and families needs.

This is informed through annual needs analysis, visitor and prisoner forums, surveys, staff feedback linked to sentence planning, commissioned analytical work, and the use of national and regional data and reports.

This ensures the family offer remains proportionate, targeted, and aligned with both local need and national expectations.

In addition, we:

• continually strive to improve the experience of families & Significant others (FaSO) at our establishment
• continue to improve communications between prisoners and families loved ones
• provide training and support within an ’enabling‘ environment to prisoners, families and loved ones

Support and services offered

Visitors centre

The visitors centre opens around one hour before the start of each visiting session and closes 30 minutes before the end of the session.

Facilities include:

• comfortable soft seating
• a children’s play area
• toilets and baby-changing facilities
• information displays and take away leaflets and booklets

These facilities are available while visitors wait to be called through for their visit

Children’s play facilities

The visits centre has a selection of books and games to keep young children occupied. we also have a dedicated children’s play area within the main visits hall.

Family engagement work

Our family support provider, the Prison Advice and Care Trust, works to support the children and families who come to visit prisoners, helping them maintain healthy relationships and regular contact with their loved ones.

Their aim is to ensure that prisoners can continue to be loving and engaged parents despite being in custody, and that children know they are still cared for and valued.

PACT offers a range of activities designed to strengthen family connections, including special visits for children.

Support is delivered by a family engagement worker (FEW), who helps families build and maintain strong relationships. This may involve working with Social Services to arrange visits that contribute to rebuilding relationships between prisoners and their children.

When necessary, prison offender managers, keyworkers, and partner agency staff will refer individuals to the service.

Where needed, services that support the whole family will be provided. This may include meetings between family members and the FEW or volunteers before visits.

During these meetings, families can receive support and be signposted to external agencies when required and appropriate.

Staff are also available in the onsite visits centre for confidential discussions.

PACT has introduced a Family Forum event, providing regular opportunities to gather feedback from visiting families and improve the experience at HMP Leicester.

In addition, a family engagement lead frequently attends the visits centre to listen to visitors’ views and identify areas for improvement.

Regular surveys are carried out to gather feedback from visitors. The results are reviewed during management meetings with the FaSO lead to ensure continuous improvement.

There are several ways prisoners can maintain contact with their families. You can visit the main Leicester prison page for more information about booking visits and other ways to keep in touch.

Family days

HMP Leicester, in partnership with PACT, deliver family days that offer a significantly different experience from standard daily social visits.

Family day visits run from 10:30am to 2:30pm, providing a relaxed and engaging environment for prisoners and their families.

Each family day follows a themed program such as sports day, back to school, or Christmas and includes a range of activities including:

• group activities
• arts and crafts
• competitions
• games

Catering is provided by the prison during family days, so families do not need to purchase refreshments. The extended visit also allows families to enjoy a shared lunchtime together.

Family days take place twelve times per year and are advertised to both prisoners and families.

We aim to offer as many opportunities as possible during an individual’s time here, however attendance at every event cannot be guaranteed.

Approval for these sessions is dependent on the prisoner meeting certain criteria, such as custodial behaviour and whether they are subject to any public protection measures. We do not exclude based on incentives status.

Prisoner visitors

Prisoners who do not have anyone able to visit them may request a volunteer prison visitor.

Volunteers provide support through visits, phone calls, or written correspondence. This service is provided by the Chaplaincy Department.

Help with prison visits

Visitors may be able to claim travel costs for up to 2 visits per month through the Help with prison visits scheme. Terms and conditions apply.

Socially isolated prisoners

HMP Leicester is committed to identifying individuals in our care who may be socially isolated, including those who receive few or no social visits.

Safer Custody staff will collect this information monthly and share it with PACT, who will then contact the identified prisoners and offer additional support where needed.

As part of routine casework, key workers will discuss each prisoner’s external contact. Where contact is limited or completely absent they will make a referral to PACT to ensure appropriate support is provided.

Normalisation

While custody creates necessary boundaries between those in prison and the wider community, our aim is to provide as much positive normality as possible.

Strengthening positive connections and maintaining family ties are central to this.

We therefore work closely with community partners to enrich the regime and create meaningful opportunities for engagement.

This includes welcoming both local and national speakers, as well as community support services, to deliver workshops and talks that promote learning, encourage reflection, and help individuals maintain positive social and communication skills.

We also facilitate a variety of structured events, such as employment fairs, resettlement days and family focused activities. These strengthen healthy relationships and support prisoners in preparing effectively for life after release.

Our Employment Hub plays a key role in this, enabling individuals to build relevant skills, access tailored support, and make informed plans for the future.

Together, these initiatives contribute to a rehabilitative culture that recognises the vital influence of family, community, and positive role models in reducing reoffending.

We also engage with local schools, upon request, to provide additional parental support where this is identified as necessary.

Faith and community support

The Chaplaincy department at Leicester provide pastoral care to the prison community and supports the spiritual and faith based needs of all individuals in custody.

The team offers support to every prisoner, regardless of religious belief, and meets with all new arrivals during their early days to identify any pastoral or faith related requirements.

Chaplaincy also:

• explains the support available and how to access the team
• may contact families, where appropriate, to confirm a prisoner’s location and help maintain communication during the early days in custody
• works closely with the Early Days and Safety teams to coordinate support during a prisoner’s induction
• provides ongoing pastoral support, including during periods of family illness or bereavement
• maintains contact with families during serious ill health or following a bereavement;
• supports eligible prisoners to apply to attend funerals or visit seriously ill relatives in hospital
• provides access to the faith room, offering a quiet space for reflection, prayer, mourning, or time away from the residential wings
• facilitates the Official Prison Visitors (OPV) scheme for prisoners who do not receive social visits
• provides a programme of worship services, faith-based learning and other faith activities
• supports prisoners with matters relating to their faith, spirituality and wellbeing
• provides resettlement support before release, including helping individuals connect with local faith groups and community organisations

Care leavers

Practical support and guidance, along with emotional support is provided through multi agency work to provide much needed support by way of health, housing, employment and education.

As part of providing this service we:

• work with local authorities on specific cases as decided by them
• await governmental and local authority guidance on the specific offer for the 21 to 25 age group.
• work with the IRMT to develop our knowledge of care leavers, both as victims and offenders

To further our support of care leavers, we will:

• assist local authorities in meeting their obligations as defined by guidance
• develop support systems in tandem with the Offender Management in Custody model.

Safeguarding measures

HMP Leicester promotes the welfare of all prisoners, particularly vulnerable adults at risk and protects them from all kinds of harm and neglect.

We are committed to ensuring that prisoners in our custody and care are provided a safe and secure environment which protects them from harm and neglect.

They receive safe and effective care and support.

In addition to this we are also committed to safeguarding children who visit or who have any contact with prisoners at HMP Leicester.

To achieve this HMP Leicester are committed to working in partnership with

• Practice Plus Healthcare providers
• Local Authority (Leicestershire and Rutland Adult Safeguarding Board and Leicester Adults Safeguarding Board)
• Leicester Safeguarding Children Partnership Board (LSCPB)
• Leicestershire and Rutland Safeguarding Children Partnership
• Leicestershire Police (PPU) and Children’s Services within Leicestershire City Council
• and other relevant agencies to ensure a multi agency approach to safeguarding

For further reference to safeguarding measures, please see the HMPPS Child Safeguarding Policy Framework - GOV.UK.

What we have achieved

• We have held celebration events for prisoners and their families who have successfully completed the listeners scheme.
• We continue to support prisoners and their families to maintain meaningful family ties. Family visits remain highly popular, and we are committed to further improving the experience for everyone attending.
• We provided new father visits to enable fathers to bond with their newly born children.
• A visit tailored to children with neurodivergent needs is being rolled out.

You said, we did

• Hot food is now being served on all family visits to encourage families to eat a meal together.
• Selection of food and drinks available on visits has increased.
• New toys and books have been purchased for children across all age ranges for use during visits.
• Family visits are now offered 12 times throughout the year.

How we will measure our success

• Prisoner Family Needs Questionnaire
• Prisoner Consultative Committee
• Reducing Reoffending Meetings
• HM Inspectorate of Prison reports
• Prisoner Managing the Quality of Prison Life
• Rehabilitative Culture meetings
• Visitors Advisory Board
• Safer Prisons team to invite families or significant others to ACCT reviews or provide palliative care support.
• Performance measure.

Staffing structure

Governing Governor Head of Reducing Reoffending Head of Chaplaincy Family and Significant Others Lead Family and Significant Other Champion Family Engagement Manager