August Newsletter

Notes from CEO

Dear Affect Supporters,
I hope you’ve had a wonderful Summer. I’m absolutely delighted to share that AFFECT has been awarded a £5,000 grant by The Albert Hunt Trust. As many of you know, we’ve been working incredibly hard, submitting funding applications to keep our services operational. This grant is a real win for the charity and more importantly, for the families we support. We remain committed to pursuing additional funding to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of our support services. Thank you for standing with us, especially through the uncertain times. Your kind messages and unwavering support uplifited the team moral.

I’m also very pleased to announce that we’ve recently welcomed two new Telephone Support Workers, Bethany and Katelynn, to the AFFECT team. We hope your time with the organisation is productive and mutually beneficial.

In June, we proudly launched our new and improved website, a milestone that was only possible thanks to you. The family stories and heartfelt testimonials you shared made the site truly come to life. Which now form a powerful reflection of the need for our work. If you haven’t yet seen the website, please do visit us at: Affect

We also have an opportunity this month to receive additional support through the ‘My Favourite Voucher Code’ charity poll. AFFECT is 1 of 4 chosen charities, and the winner will receive 20% of the platform’s profits. Voting is completely free and only takes a few seconds. The poll closes on 31st August 2025, so please do consider casting your vote here: Vote for AFFECT to Help Families with Criminal Trauma and help us continue making a difference.

To our volunteer Telephone Support Workers thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you do. And to the families for choosing AFFECT to walk alongside you on your journey. If at any time you would like to be reassigned to a different Support Worker, please don’t hesitate to let us know; affectcharity@outlook.com or call 0300 365 3651. We are committed to providing person-centred support tailored to your individual needs.

Please note the next Group Gathering will be held on Saturday 6th September 2025 at 1pm via Zoom. Finally, in the coming months a Serice user questionnaire will be sent out. We would appreciate your feedback, to help us maintain and improve the quality of our services.

Love,
Shannel
Chief Executive Officer

HM Inspectorate of Prisons review of Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System 2021 Findings: Neurodivergent individuals in prison were often unidentified and unsupported. Issues included inconsistent screening, lack of staff training, and no national strategy.

Changes Since 2021:

• • Neurodiversity Support Managers (NSMs): Introduced in 105 prisons by May 2024. They raise awareness, support staff, and act as links between prisons, education providers, and healthcare.
  • Staff Training: More widely available, but uptake varies. Some prisons have embedded neurodiversity into staff development.
  • Identification: Improved, but data gaps remain. Consistent data collection is still lacking.
  • Adjustments: Some prisons have introduced practical changes like quiet spaces and sensory items, but systemic embedding is ongoing.

Positive Examples:

• • Warren Hill: High-quality support through support plans and sensory rooms.
  • Buckley Hall: In-depth screening and neurodiverse awareness training for staff.
  • Kirkham: Staff and prisoner orderlies received neurodiversity awareness training.
  • Drake Hall: Neurodiversity passport for individual support.

Areas Needing Attention:

• • Variability across prisons.
  • Over-reliance on specific individuals.
  • Limited inclusion of lived experiences.

Looking Ahead:

• • Continued focus on early identification, staff support, and adjustments and ongoing inspections.

Children Heard and Seen calls on Government to support prisoner’s children

The charity Children Heard and Seen has published its annual report, urging the Government to fulfil Labour’s manifesto pledge to help children with a parent in prison. The charity, which marked its 10th anniversary in 2024, welcomed Labour’s promise to identify children with a parent in prison and ensure they were getting support but said it wanted to see the commitment implemented.

It is estimated that nationwide there are around 200,000 children with a parent in prison – an average of eight in every school. Children Heard and Seen supports 664 children across England and Wales and says that 27 per cent of them witnessed their parent being arrested, which has a traumatic impact on their lives and confidence. Over two-thirds of those children do not visit their parent in prison.

The charity offers schools packages to advise educators of the best way to support the young people impacted as it can damage their focus in class and often leads to truancy and future life problems. It offers films explaining the difficulties being faced. Children Heard and Seen also stages practical activities such as away days and residential stays, as well as one-to-one support.

PACT cuts to service supporting Prisoner’s Families

Reported Inside Time 11.08.25
PACT (the Prison Advice and Care Trust) will scale back its one-to-one befriending service which supports people with loved ones in prison, and another service which supports defendants’ families in courts across London. The services will not cease entirely but will “continue in a much more limited form”.

The charity’s chief executive officer Andy Keen-Downs said the decision had been taken “with an extremely heavy heart” following the announcement by Chancellor Rachel Reeves of increases in employers’ NI contributions.

He said he had taken part in an unsuccessful lobbying campaign to make charities exempt from the NI changes, which were announced in last autumn’s Budget, and which are expected to cost the sector around £1.4 billion in the next year. Keen-Downs said: “These are challenging times for charities of all shapes and sizes.

In recent years, the cost-of-living crisis
and soaring inflation rates have forced charities to cut costs. More recently, the Government’s changes to NI have hit us hard, costing Pact at least £200,000 this year.

I Send My Love

I send you my love
Over miles and mountains
Over rivers and seas
Across all misunderstanding
Imagined or sure to be
That lie between us
And disturb our peace.

I send you my love
Like an arrow let fly
Piercing the fog
Of fears and of doubts,
Through memories of pain
A shooting star
Of sparkling clarity.

I send you my love
Across whatever distance
Lies between us
Not because
I wish to remind you of pain
But because I vow
To embrace you again.

By Tree Wyrm

Data Protection

AFFECT keeps very limited information on our members, name, email, and telephone details. If you would like to be removed from our records, please email affectcharity@outlook.com

DISCLAIMER
From time-to-time, AFFECT is approached by media outlets, asking us to canvas our supporters for help with their studies and or programmes. We may forward their approach, and reasons, to our supporters, but ONLY by blind copy email. We NEVER divulge any contact details of AFFECT supporters. We leave it entirely to the discretion of you, our supporters to contact any such third party. In keeping our distance from those interested in research and or programmes related to our supporters’ concerns, we are drawing on long experience, that an approach initially presented as a genuine inquiry can turn out to be exploitative, and damaging.