The Social Work Unit in Cornton Vale is part of the Criminal Justice Service. Specifically, the team provides a Social Work service within HMP Cornton Vale as agreed in a Service Level Agreement between Stirling Council and The Scottish Prison Services.
The team consists of four Social Workers, administrative support and a Team Leader.
HMP Cornton Vale is located within the Cornton area of Stirling.
HMP Cornton Vale is the national prison for women in Scotland, and houses both remand and convicted prisoners from around Scotland. The team will liaise with community colleagues in other local authorities throughout the women's time in prison.
The team's main role is to attempt reduce reoffending by addressing the needs and risks of the women in Cornton Vale. This can be through establishing and addressing previous life events which have impacted on the women's behaviour and updating formal risk assessment tools to monitor progress in an attempt to reduce re-offending.
We offer a variety of services for offenders:
All women who are subject to post-release supervision, such as Supervised Release Orders, Parole Licences or Non-Parole Licences will have an assigned Social Worker from initial sentence.
Responding to self-referrals from offenders or enquiries from external agencies for Social Work involvement/support.
Usual involvement will be for planning for release and involves liaising with external partners to ensure suitable support/monitoring mechanisms are in place prior to release.
A daily duty system is in place to address internal and external referrals.
A wide range of issues regarding the care or protection of children of women in prison may be raised, either by the women themselves or external social work agencies.
The team works closely with other social work agencies to ensure the safety and protection of the child.
We also provide assessments of the suitability of children residing with their mother within the mother and child unit at Cornton Vale.
The Prison based Social Workers will prepare a report for the Parole Board for statutory prisoners. They will liaise closely with community-based Social workers and other prison-based services to provide a detailed report relating to a risk assessment which will determining suitability for release into the community.
The team works in partnership with prison programme staff to deliver a number of offending related behaviour programmes. This includes female offending programmes, substance-related offending programmes and Constructs.
The team liaise closely with community based services to ensure that relevant information is shared about women who have committed offences against children in order to protect both children in the community and those who may be visiting the prison.
For further information regarding Social Work services at Cornton Vale, please contact the team on 01786 835359.
Throughcare is used to provide services to all prisoners both during and after their sentence. The service provided depends on the length of the sentence and whether the Court has imposed compulsory supervision.
Further information is detailed on our Throughcare web page.
Justice Service
Patons, Greenside Street, Alloa, FK10 1EB
Tel: 01259 452200 / 450000
Email: criminaljustice@clacks.gov.uk