Rehabilitation for female ex-offenders in North West England and North Wales

Women’s Turnaround is a service for female ex-offenders in Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales. As part of their probation, women who have offended in the past are supported at our Women’s Turnaround Centres, where we aim to try and help them turn their lives around and prevent reoffending.

How do we support people?

Our main aim is to help prevent women from reoffending.  We’re here to help women who have offended in the past make better choices through holistic support designed to support the whole family. 

Either in custody or in the community, women get access to a whole range of practical and emotional support to help break down any barriers to reform they may be experiencing.

Our non-judgmental team is skilled, experienced and genuinely care about each person they meet.

One-to-one, remote or group support

We offer one-to-one, remote and group support, depending on the person's needs. Post-release, women are also able to come along to peer support sessions, where they can learn from each other's rehabilitation journeys.

Counselling (Merseyside only)

We can offer women who come to our Merseyside service one-to-one counselling to support their mental health and wellbeing. We have a counsellor within the team offering bereavement counselling, trauma-based counselling, incorporating Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and elements of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, supporting with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, childhood trauma (adverse childhood experiences), sexual abuse, working through emotions and developing coping skills and identifying and managing triggers that can lead to offending behaviour. The counselling offered can help with emotional wellbeing, lifestyles, resilience, and relationships.

Support for women with children

We work closely with social services and other specialist services to support child/family contact, to maintain relationships and reduce trauma for women and their children. We support women to develop healthy parenting skills, which often leads to them being able to regain custody and contact with their children.

Support with domestic abuse

Our team is incredibly experienced in supporting women who have experienced domestic abuse, with strong referral pathways to specialist services. We're able to get emergency court orders on-molestation or prohibited steps when needed, through close links with the National Centre for Domestic Violence.

Support with complex needs

Many of the women we support have underlying complex needs that have often led to them towards offending. Our team can help identify these and support women with them.

Who can PSS work with?

We can work with women sentenced in custody and women in the community. We work across Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales.

Support for women as they leave custody

PSS key workers go to HMP Styal to provide one-to-one support to transition back into the community. This also extends to other custody settings where video link can be facilitated, for sentenced women only. The key worker will continue to provide support post-release.

Here's some of the things our key workers will do:

• Involving/motivating women to engage in their own resettlement plan.
• Signposting or referring women to community service such as GPs, community centres, mental health services.
• Sorting out access to women’s only spaces upon release.
• Pre-booking meetings with key workers upon release to action plan their support.
• One-to-one sessions for those with additional vulnerabilities, to increase likelihood of compliance post-release.
• Identifying barriers created from the transition from custody to community – ie, bank accounts, access to mobile phones, care packages.
• Working with women on a one-to-one basis around reservations they have around being released and what support is in place so that we can address barriers prior to release.
• One-to-one support prior to release around ways to motivate compliance and engagement with other service categories.
• Peer support for post-release.

The benefits of referring to Women’s Turnaround

• Women get tailored, non-judgemental support in their community.
• Many women who have offended have many underlying complex needs, which we can assess and support them with.
• Women have access to a range of practical and emotional support, as well as signposting to other specialist services.
• It’s a cost-effective form of support.
• We work to reduce social exclusion for women leaving custody.
• We work across multidisciplinary teams to achieve the best outcomes for each of the women we support.
• We work inclusively.
• Our approach is holistic and has a focus on families.
• We provide peer support for women post-release.
• We support women to develop child-centred parenting skills, which often leads to women regaining custody and contact with their children
• We have a great track record of reducing substance abuse, self-harm and suicide.

How to make a referral to Women's Turnaound

We accept referrals from probation services.

More information

For more information about Women’s Turnaround, contact Sharon.

Call: 0151 702 5555

Email: Sharon.cooper@pss.org.uk