Glasgow City Council is committed to providing a range of robust services that can assist the individual and their families during and after the period of custody.
The council operates according to the National Objectives and Standards for Social Work Services in the Criminal Justice System.
These standards define throughcare as:
"The provision of a range of Social Work and associated services to prisoners and their families from the point of sentence or remand, during the period of imprisonment and following release into the community. The services are primarily concerned to assist prisoners to prepare for release, and to help them settle in the community, within the law".
Prison based services
Housing services for ex-prisoners
Clyde Place diversion team
Key Objective
To assist prisoners and their families to prepare for release and resettlement in the community
Prison based services
Social work services in prisons is undertaken by local authorities by means of a service level agreement with the Scottish Prison Service which determines the range of services offered
The City Council provides services in HMP Barlinnie with a team of social workers based within the prison. The service is provided to all prisoners, not just those from the Glasgow area.
Barlinnie Prison receives male prisoners from courts mainly in the West of Scotland. It retains all remand prisoners and adult convicted prisoners serving less than four years. It allocates long term prisoners to Shotts, Glenochil and Kilmarnock prisons and suitable prisoners from its short term convicted population to a range of lower security prisons. The current population is just over 1400 prisoners; both remand and convicted aged from 21 upwards and a significant proportion of these have addiction or mental health problems, in some cases both.
The main focus for prison based social work staff are:
- prisoners subject to statutory supervision on release
- referrals to assist with immediate issue or onward referral to an appropriate agency for:
- prisoners serving short term sentences
- prisoners on remand
The social work team is in regular contact both with other prison based units and community based social work teams and criminal justice, children and families and community care agencies.
The team also has regular contact with housing authorities, medical professionals, addiction services and, in the case of sex offenders, the police across the United kingdom where this is relevant to the prisoner’s situation.
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Housing services for ex-prisoners
The City Council has seconded a team of housing caseworkers to HMP Barlinnie. The team has been operational since 1st January 2001 and also covers referrals from five other prisons.
Key elements for the team:
- To provide a housing casework service to all prisoners who will be roofless on release back to Glasgow from the following six prisons, (including the high risk cases): Barlinnie, Low Moss, Glenochil, Polmont, Cornton Vale / Greenock (women)
- To assess housing and support needs and access suitable accommodation for date of release
- To help break the cycle of homelessness and offending behaviour
- To reduce the number of single people presenting as homeless
- To provide advice and assistance to Glasgow cases and also roofless cases from other local authorities
- To divert clients away from hostels and the Hamish Allan Centre, and into more appropriate accommodation
- To involve whatever statutory or voluntary agencies as necessary
- To work closely with Social Work, Scottish Prison Service and Police as required
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Clyde Place diversion team
There is also a casework team based in Clyde Place Assessment Centre that deals with referrals from all other Scottish prisons, plus high risk cases in private and voluntary sector hostels.
Contact details
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