Project Description
Diversity House carries out prison-based outreaches in Her Majesty’s Prison Service such as in Longport Prison, East Sutton Park, etc. Similar outreaches were also carries out at HMP Stanford Hill and Emley at the Sheppey Cluster in 2012; SERCO prisons at Thameside; Young Offenders Institute Faltham and Cookham Wood Rochester. In all, 209 Prisoners were impacted. The discussions centred on diversity, life in prison and community reengagement, confidence, pride and many other questions/subjects that were raised. Report from the prison showed how well the outreaches were received by the prisons and inmates.
Diversity House also provide a range of culturally sensitive and appropriate services for Black and Minority (BME) offenders. The service focuses on providing a holistic package of care to meet to unique needs of each service user to promote autonomy and independence. For instance, with regards to drug and alcohol interventions local needs assessments have consistently highlighted the under-representation of clients and BME communities in treatment. Also it has been identified that this under-representation of BME communities in prisons may be linked to cultural factors and this has led to Diversity house providing a series of presentations and workshops to the Kent and Sussex Are Drug Strategy on how to engage and retain BME clients in substance misuse treatment.