How Nacro is responding to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

In response to the Coronavirus outbreak, we have been continuously assessing and adapting our service delivery to respond to the changing situation. Staff, trustees and partners have been working hard to continue to support our service users and learners and support our staff during this difficult time. Below is the most recent update on how our services are operating. We remain committed to supporting all of our service users and our staff.
Our resettlement teams within prisons have now all moved out of the prisons and are working remotely where possible and our community teams are continuing to deliver support to service users, remotely over the phone. We are currently working hard to try and provide the best possible support to those in prison, from the community.

All education provision run by Nacro in prisons and in youth secure units has now stopped and we are looking at what support we can offer remotely. We have closed all our Education and Skills centres including Totton College until further notice, in line with the Government’s directive on schools and colleges. We are supporting students remotely and we are encouraging all students to participate and to stay in regular contact.

In our housing and support services, all our schemes are currently continuing to run, although with changes to staffing and the way support is delivered. Staff remain on-site in our higher needs schemes, although generally with reduced cover. Where possible, we have moved to remote working and regular telephone support and we are continuing to operate face to face contact where necessary with social distancing. We are reviewing each scheme on a daily basis.

In our community substance misuse services we have reduced non-clinical services to telephone appointments and we have closed some of our recovery hubs in line with guidance from NHS partners and commissioners. However we are doing our best to ensure that clinical elements of our services remain available and accessible to service users, either over the phone or face-to-face.

Our Resettlement Advice Service helpline is operating as normal with staff working from home. This is available for people in prison who have concerns regarding criminal records and resettlement on release.