Funding award for Norfolk prison leaver charity 

Norfolk Community Chaplaincy were awarded £20,000 for their ongoing work with Prison Leavers.
 

The Norfolk-based charity has been awarded £15k funding from Norwich Consolidated Charities and £5k from Norfolk Community Foundation through the Love Norfolk Fund to continue their work with prison leavers. They support prison leavers by recruiting and training volunteer mentors to ‘walk with them’ as they reintegrate back into society.  Having a mentor to talk to and provide help with anything from a listening ear to completing applications and signposting them to other support agencies – this all helps to break the cycle of reoffending.  They have three paid part time staff: manager, mentor co-ordinator and operations and development administrator, and an average of about twenty-five mentors and clients at any one time.  In total so far they have supported 183 prison leavers on their journey to rebuilding their lives.

Abby Erwin, manager of CCN said: “We are enormously grateful to Norwich Consolidated Charities and the Norfolk Community Foundation Love Norfolk Fund for their support, which will enable us to continue our work with people leaving prison, whose needs are so often overlooked.”

Since being awarded charity status in 2018 they have trained 124 volunteers, of who 53 have gone on to be active mentors.  The training is intensive and helps people decide if mentoring is for them.  The next course will be taking place on two Saturdays – 31 May and 7 June.  Please contact them if you would like to take part.  Other ways to help are to sign-up for their Prayer Newsletter and to donate via the website as a one off or regular payment.  £10 provides for one mentor/client meeting, £50 covers the training of one mentor.

One client recently said of CCN: “(My mentor) is always there if and when I need them. I feel comfortable enough to be able to talk about anything and always receive the best advice.”

If you’d like to find out more information about CCN please contact the team info@norfolkchaplaincy.org.uk    website: norfolkchaplaincy.org.uk
 

Norwich Consolidated Charities is one single charity and is one of the 4 Registered Charities in the Norwich Charitable Trusts group of Charities.  The Charity makes grants to individuals and to other charities for exceptional items or payments where this will provide significant relief to the applicant or dependants.  For further information contact: info@norwichct.org.uk

Claire Mackintosh MBE, Chief Executive of Norfolk Community Foundation, said: ‘Norfolk Community Foundation is delighted to support this much needed project that will make a real difference in the community. We wish them every success with their work.’For further information on applying for funding go to Norfolk Community Foundation’s website www.norfolkfoundation.com.