Fresh Start Future Enterprises – Case Study
Fresh Start Future Enterprises promotes the rehabilitation and resettlement of ex-offenders for the public benefit by providing mentoring, support, training and education and to help ex-offenders find sustainable employment and housing.
A grant awarded from the Suffolk Coronavirus Community Fund will enable Fresh Start to support the mentoring of ex-offenders on leaving custody from Norwich and Wayland Prisons who reside in Suffolk, following the internal prison lockdown’s due to Covid-19. All of the peer support mentors at Fresh Start have lived experience of being in custody, which helps to break down barriers and provide an additional layer of support and empathy.
Prisons across the UK continue to be in lockdown, which for most individuals the past 15 weeks has meant spending 23hrs a day in a 9 x 5 cell, with little contact to their family and friends and no rehabilitation or resettlement. Individuals are being released into an environment that everyone is trying to adapt to.
Thanks to Suffolk Community Foundation we are now able to provide peer mentor support, which can range from emotional wellbeing, assisting with benefit claims, signposting to additional support and just being there when needed most