Stoke Heath Prison: Families and significant others strategy 2025
Stoke Heath’s family strategy outlines how we support prisoners in our care to develop meaningful and constructive relationships with their family or significant others.
Applies to England and Wales
Our commitment to you
Families come in all shapes and sizes. So, when we talk about ‘families’ we include blood relations, legal guardians, friends, and those that have been identified as a next of kin.
Lots of our people have experienced ‘non-traditional’ upbringings and we want to make sure that everyone is included.
Positive family contact can act like a comfort blanket and really help to make someone feel like they still matter. It can help prevent someone returning to crime, drug and alcohol misuse and prison.
Coming to prison can be a scary time. Some prisoners really struggle with the impact of losing their freedom and can become withdrawn, turning to substance misuse or self-harm as methods of coping when they are missing their family and friends.
Working together to help maintain your relationships means we can reduce that anxiety and frustration.
What we aim to do
- Support prisoners and families in maintaining good relationships.
- Help improve parenting skills for prisoners and guide them through their children’s educational experiences.
- Provide advice and guidance to families and prisoners, keeping the family friendly focus.
- Offer support with troubled relationships.
- Reduce / remove barriers to enable family members to visit the prison so they can experience quality visits in a welcoming environment.
- Establish links with local authorities in the support of families and children.
- Work around going home and reintegrating into the family unit.
Visits hall
The visits hall is run by prison officers. It is a large open space that has seating arranged so that you can enjoy your time with your family member.
Report to the main desk when you arrive. You will be checked-in and given a table number.
Prisoner Advice and Care Trust (PACT) staff are available during visits to support families with any queries or signpost them to external/internal agencies. PACT will also provide toys and activities for children.
We have a snack bar, so you can buy refreshments during your visit.
We are a cashless establishment. We only accept card payments for refreshments purchased in the visits hall.
Support and services offered
Visitors’ centre
Opening times: every day from midday.
The visitors’ centre is run by PACT’s family services team.
They can provide information, guidance and support to families and friends of prisoners, including help with:
- a safe, happy environment for children and a positive visit for prisoners and adult carers
- emotional support to all visitors
- explanation of prison procedures
- links to support in the community
- access to all the information they need
- toys and activities for children
Children’s play facilities
PACT’s play services provide high-quality, trained play workers. They support children and families during prison visits. They can also arrange child-centred visits, including family days, and activities for older children.
In the visitors’ centre:
There is a small area in the visit centre with toys for young children to play with.
PACT provide activity boxes on every table with activities for families to complete while waiting for their visit. These activities are themed and run in line with the seasons and calendar events.
PACT also provide activities for adults to pass the time while they are waiting. These include magazines, mindfulness coloring and puzzle books.
There is a TV in the visit centre. This will show family-friendly shows / films in the background.
In the visits hall:
There is a larger play area in the visits hall.
This has toys, books and activities for children to play with during their visit.
There are trays of activities for children and families to take back to their table to compete with the person they are visiting. (These are arranged by age.)
PACT also provide an ‘older children’ activity box that consists of loom bands, origami, playing cards and so on.
Families are given a board game list a range of games can be played at the tables.
PACT also has a range of neurodiverse toys, that can be provided on request.
Family engagement work / casework
PACT work within the prison to support both prisoners and families.
We have a full-time family engagement manager and a part-time family engagement worker. They spend their time helping prisoners to maintain a good level of family contact while they are in custody.
They also:
- help with rebuilding those relationships which may have broken down over time
- support those prisoners who do not receive visits from their families
If you wish to contact PACT directly you can:
- either speak to one of their staff during your visit
- email them at: stokeheath@prisonadvice.org.uk
PACT’s family engagement workers offer support on:
- strengthening and maintaining relationships
- re-connecting broken relationships
- liaising with social services and acting as a point of contact for child protection and child welfare issues
- assistance with court applications for Child Arrangement Orders
- support around parenting
- developing a positive support network
- work around ‘going home’ after prison
- dealing with concerns (for example, parent in a care home)
- working closely with schools (for example, involvement in parents evening)
- a wide range of one-to-one intervention covering family, relationships, parenting, emotions and reintegration into the community
Adoption support
Some prisoners may have lost their children to adoption or are going through the process when they are received into custody.
PACT staff help prisoners with letter writing and encourage them to maintain letter box contact, if it has been granted.
They also arrange final contact visits between dads and children in our special extended family room.
We understand how emotional and distressing these visits can be, so we ensure these visits are carried out with sensitivity.
Post-adoption support is then offered by the team.
Parenting/relationship courses
PACT can provide the following workbooks for your loved one to complete independently or with support:
- Anger & Stress in Relationships
- Dads Reconnected
- Confidence & Assertiveness
- Family Finances
- Going Home
- Managing Your Worry
- Good Relationships – Communication
- My Family Matters
- Good Relationships – Dealing with Conflict
- PACT PSHE
- Moving On
- New Beginnings
- Parenting Ages 0 – 12
- Parenting Teenagers
Ingeus CFO can provide the following workbooks for your loved one to complete independently or with support:
- Healthy Relationships
- Communication
- Body Language
- Relationships Do’s and Don’ts
- Setting your own standards
- My Family
- Communication with family members
- Respecting families
- Positive role models
- How to improve and maintain family relationships
- Important contacts
- Being Dad
- What does being a dad mean to you?
- Your aims and goals of being a dad
- What do children need from their dad
- Effect of prison on children
- How to create good memories, feelings and emotions?
- Child development and nutrition
Forward Trust can provide the following courses / workbooks for your loved one to complete independently or with support:
Relationships Matter Group (8 sessions)
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Improve their understanding of the diverse range of relationships they have in their lives.
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Improve their understanding of how relationships can impact on and are affected by their own behaviour.
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Know how to improve communication within their relationships.
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Learn how to use healthy coping strategies to deal with relationship challenges.
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Identify areas for positive change to support improvements in relationships and behaviours.
Relationships Matter Contents (sessions are approximately 1.5 hour long)
Session 1. Defining our Relationships – Part 1 Welcome and introductions
Session 2. Defining our Relationships – Part 2 Culture and Roles
Session 3. Relationships and their Impact – Part 1 Attachment Theory
Session 4. Relationships and their Impact – Part 2 Impactof healthy/unhealthy relationship behaviours
Session 5. Relationships, Communication and Coping Strategies - Part 1 Communication and Problem Solving
Session 6. Relationships, Communication and Coping Strategies - Part 2 Changing unhelpful relationship patterns and setting boundaries
Session 7. Change – Part 1 Changing the way you think and feel (CBT-based)
Session 8. Change – Part 2 Planning for change
Building Family Ties In-Cell Pack:
Module 1 – Addiction and the Family
Module 2 – Membership, Identity and Belonging
Module 3 – Communicating Effectively
Module 4 – Preparing for Release
Family days
In partnership with the prison, PACT run 12 family days throughout the year.
Some are aimed at children with families, others are for those with only adult family members.
These visits usually take place between 10am and 4pm and last for the full four hours.
All eligible prisoners and are encouraged to apply.
These visits are usually themed, especially at a certain time of the year like Christmas and Easter.
They are full of fun with activities that you can all join in with together as a family unit.
Photographs can be taken at family days by our staff, when consent is given.
We understand photographs can be very precious and sometimes rare for those with a family member in prison.
It is not always possible to grant each applicant a place on every family visits day as numbers are restricted.
But we do all we can to ensure it is shared out fairly.
We run our under-18 family days during the school holidays so that education and routine is not disrupted.
We also offer a social morning / afternoon which operates in the same way as a family day. This is for prisoners who do not receive any social visits or have any family contact.
Care leavers
Care leavers are entitled to support until they are 25 years old, so linking-in with local authorities is vital in supporting care leavers in our care.
We will take guidance from the HMPPS Strategy for Care Experienced People, learning from best practice and lived experiences within the document.
The document highlights the importance of linking in with local authorities to enable as much information as possible to given to those within our care.
Staff at HMP Stoke Heath are keen to support those who have been through the care system. We appreciate that some may have been through exceptionally traumatic times in their lives may need additional support.
Within the Offender Management Unit, we have ‘Care Champions’ who can offer specialist support and referral to services designed to help those with experience in the care sector.
Safeguarding measures
At Stoke Heath we have a safeguarding policy that ensures safeguarding measures are in place for people in our care, vulnerable adults and children. All adults in need of safeguarding have the right to live their lives free from abuse of any description.
All agencies and individuals that have contact with adults in need of safeguarding have a duty to protect them from abuse.
Where abuse is reported to or suspected by any person the response will be prompt and in line with prison service policies.
The prison works as a multi-agency team to meet the needs of prisoners in ensuring that they remain safe.
PACT workers are trained and vigilant in child protection and safeguarding practice. They work within a tried and tested safeguarding framework used in prison visitors’ centres and visits halls for over 10 years.
See HMP Stoke Heath’s main GOV.UK page for contact details if you have a safeguarding concern
For further reference to safeguarding measures, please see the HMPPS Child Safeguarding Policy Framework
What have we achieved?
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Family days are now run monthly. Under-18 family days (children) take place during half-terms, and three over-18 family days have been introduced to target our prisoners who do not have children but want an extended visit with their family.
- PACT are running social mornings / afternoons in 2025 to target our prisoners who do not have family contact or receive social visits. Prisoners will have the opportunity to experience a visit with other prisoners including games, crafts, and activities, and be able to develop a support network with agencies / departments in the prison.
- PACT have facilitated accredited courses for prisoners. Coming Home is a one-day resettlement course preparing service users to return to their home and family. The course explores the hidden sentence that families have had to face, and the steps needed to ensure that prison leavers have prepared a smart action plan to support their transition back home. Coming Home ran January to April 2025. The Within My Reach course supports people in maintaining healthy, safe, and stable relationships with partners and families, by tackling issues including handling conflict, trust and forgiveness, and recognising dangerous behavioural patterns with a focus on healthy and unhealthy ideas. Within My Reach ran April to June 2025.
- PACT rolled out a booking system for the multi-purpose room (extended family space) in visits in March 2025. Prisoners can request this room to use on a normal social visit to support neurodiverse needs, newborn visits, bereavement and so on. All applications made will be screened by security.
- We hold Family Forums four times a year with our families and visitors. Our recruited Family Forum members represent and speak on behalf of the families who have completed the feedback forms. Themes and patterns are identified from the feedback forms and are discussed with the establishment.
- A PACT Wing Champion (voluntary position) has been recruited on every wing in the prison. Our PACT Wing Champions are representatives of PACT, and their main role is to promote our service, signpost and make referrals to our service.
- We have now completed PACT visit and casework surveys to identify the needs of the people in our care and what we can do to improve their time at HMP Stoke Heath and how to improve the visit experience.
- We are setting up Story Book Dads. This initiative helps parents in prison to record bedtime stories and messages for their children as audio or video.
You said, we did
Your feedback is important for us to make sure we provide the best visits experience.
Here’s how we use your feedback to keep improving:
- better selection of refreshments / food during visits - we now offer pot noodles, sandwiches and pasta pots
- we are working on improving our search area by enhancing our visit process from the child’s perspective
- we are reviewing prison regime and profile with the hopes of ensuring visits are on time
How will we measure our success?
- PACT questionnaire / survey for prisoners and visitors.
- Family forums.
- Reducing reoffending meetings.
- HM Inpectorate of Prisons inspection reports.
- Prisoner Measuring the Quality of Prison Life (MQPL) questionnaire.
- Safer prisons team to invite families or significant others to Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (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 Engagement Manager
- Family Engagement Worker
- Family Support Workers (x2)
- Volunteers (x3)