Heidi Price, Jackie Hampson, Jason Kellow Webb

Mary* was known to the Merseyside criminal justice services as a PPO (Prolific and Priority Offender). Originally our belief was that keeping her out of prison for more than a few days at a time would be an achievement in itself. By her own admission she felt institutionalised.

She was in a cycle of leaving custody homeless, with no option but to stay with ‘acquaintances’, no support to manage her mental health symptoms, using drugs and being returned to custody within a few days.

Mary needed to attend the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC), substance misuse service and complete emergency housing applications, all on her day of release. Trying to facilitate this amount of appointments within one day is not an easy task – this case required all services to be responsive and understanding, but unfortunately that was not always the case. When Mary was unable to secure accommodation, this only reiterated her lack of faith in services.

It took some time and continuous reinforcement to convince Mary that P3 were a dedicated team who wanted to support her development and personal empowerment for a brighter future. This sometimes meant knocking on doors when she cancelled appointments, rescheduling diaries, providing her with a mobile phone and credit to help establish direct contact and funding a small amount of food, clothing and toiletries.

Mary was requesting accommodation that both her and her partner could reside in with their dog; however, Housing Options would only provide emergency housing at a hostel that wouldn’t allow pets. With other providers the process took time, and it proved impossible to engage Mary long enough to attend housing appointments and complete applications to even begin the process.

Towards the end of July, Mary’s partner James* became known to probation services. Given the complexities of the case, CRC requested that P3 engage with him as well to combine their needs as a couple, despite James not meeting the threshold for support. This flexibility was pivotal to the changes made. Shortly afterwards, Mary also discovered she was pregnant.

“Mary and James signed their first tenancy in a number of years, taking them from a tent in a garden to their own two-up, two-down property”

After working with CRC, Riverside and Integrated Offender Management (IOM) to secure temporary accommodation to allow time and space for assessments, P3 found rented accommodation with a private landlord and organised funding for a deposit. The money was paid to the landlord directly and both Mary and James signed their first tenancy in years, taking them from a tent in a garden to their own two-up, two-down property.

Since then, P3 has supported a coordinated response from services like Community Mental Health, Change, Grow, Live (CGL) drug support and specialist midwife services, all of which would have been reluctant to engage because of Mary’s history. Without P3’s support, Mary would have left many of the assessments.

Mary and her partner are now heading in a positive direction; Mary will call P3 herself to update on daily activities and let us know of any issues. She has been back in touch with her parents, and has been out of custody for three months – the longest in many years and the happiest she has been for some considerable time.

Mary said:

“I now have a life. Previously I just existed. Without the support from P3, I wouldn’t be where I am today: happy.”

*names have been changed to protect client anonymity.