The Community Living Unit

The Community Living Unit (CLU) is a new, specialist CFO wing at HMP High Down for long-term prisoners who may benefit from a safe space with tailored programmes and additional personalised support.?With a welcoming environment, and culture, participants can engage with additional accredited training, motivation and confidence building, cooking, gardening, and additional family visits as well as wrap-around services.

The first cohort of the pilot have almost completed the programme. Initially, eight men started with attendance being 100%, and the CLU is already attracting interest from peers.

Activity days (not dissimilar to what is on offer in CFO Activity Hubs) have proven to be a real hit with the men, drawing good attendance and allowing participants to engage in activities and sessions that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.

Sharon, CFO Pilots, and Innovation Lead tells us about some of the participants in CLU.

“There is one participant that always springs to mind when I think about the importance of the CFO pilot wings. This young man is serving a life sentence and has never been previously released. He was reluctant to engage with many alternative interventions, but through a series of fruitful conversations with the CFO3 team based on the Community Living Unit, he began to trust that the project had been tailored to people in circumstances such as his. Nervous to engage, he was concerned about how his lack of life experience might impact him within group settings.

The CLU cooking sessions in their dedicated kitchen provided a safe space to discuss his experiences without judgement, to upskill his knowledge and grow in confidence. Since taking part in these community sessions, this young man has started to engage with his CFO3 Case Worker on a 1-2-1 basis and they’re starting to discuss issues from outside of the prison, helping to understand the world around him and the importance of integrating with a community. Through the sessions offered in the CLU, this young man has cooked a meal for the first time in his life and has told us he’s excited to do this for his mum one day to repay her for the support over the years.

The CFO3 teams across the 80+ custody estates they work in, are always looking for innovative ways to engage participants, they have always had a knack for being able to do get some incredible outcomes with few resources. CFO Pilot wings really heighten what is possible when working with prisoners that are excluded or choose to exclude themselves from the mainstream offer.”

The Community Living Unit is one of three CFO pilot wings, with CFO Discovery Wing at HMP Risley which has a focus on veterans and peer mentoring, and CFO The Hamlet at HMP Drake Hall which started in March.

To find out more about CFO pilots, or the CFO custody offer, email [email protected]