HMP High Down: Families and significant others strategy 2026

You can find visiting information and book a visit on the High Down prison main page.

Our commitment to you

Maintaining family relationships remains central to reducing reoffending and supporting successful resettlement. We are committed to strengthening family ties and fostering positive connections.

We recognise that imprisonment impacts not only the individual but also their families and significant others, who often experience hidden hardships.

High Down’s commitment to prisoner’s children, families and significant others in 2026 to 27:

• Ensure prisoners have access to communication systems including in-cell telephony, email and video calling.
• Ensure prisoners can attend regular, meaningful face-to-face visits in a safe and welcoming environment that promotes positive interaction.
• Ensure that the establishment operates systems that allow families to raise concerns so they can provide support during times of crisis, ensuring timely and appropriate responses.
• Promote the use of video calling technology to complement social visits, ensuring accessibility and awareness among prisoners and families.
• Promote phone calls during Induction and prompt access to PIN phones to facilitate family contact.
• Encourage and assist prisoners to engage with their families during times of distress.
• Ensure care leavers access the appropriate support available to them.
• Support prisoners and visitors with a neurodiverse need to ensure they have a positive visits experience.
• Continue to arrange family/children’s days, developing the events to meet the needs of the families involved.
• Continue to work with the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) and High Down visits managers to enhance the visits experience for prisoners, children, and families.
• Develop relationships with personal advisors to help support and manage care leavers through custody and prepare them for release. Our prison offender managers and key workers are central to this relationship.
• To take an active approach to public protection, to ensure we identify family members at risk at the early and have robust systems in place to ensure those at risk are appropriately safeguarded.
• Increase safeguarding training.
• Raise awareness across all staff of child protection and understanding those with neurodiverse needs.

Support and services offered

Visitors’ centre

The visitors centre at HMP High Down is run by Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) staff, who offer information, support and guidance to those visiting a prisoner.

You will find:

• information and support regarding visiting procedures and booking visits
• a ‘digital information station’ for visitors to access support
• information and advice about life in prison
• refreshment facilities
• lockers
• a children’s play area
• toilets and baby changing facilities

Children’s play facilities

We have an outdoor play area in our visitors centre. It has recently been refurbished.

In the visits hall, we have a sectioned-off child appropriate play area that is well maintained and resourced.

Neurodiversity

We have a ‘Sensory Room’. This is a space for children with neurodiverse needs.

This room allows children with a neurodiverse need to feel safe and comfortable.

PACT staff are familiar with families and will support those families whose visit experience will be enhanced by using this space.

If you have a child family member who requires adjustments to attend visits, then please let our visitor centre staff know.

Family engagement work 

We have a family engagement worker, 3 days a week to help prisoners who wish to discuss family issues. Topics might include:

• visits
• helping locate a prisoner’s missing property
• prisoners who have lost contact with their family members and their children

The aim is to help strengthen and maintain relationships and re-connect broken relationships.

The family engagement worker can be link between the prisoner and Social Services. They can be a point of contact for child protection and child welfare issues.

All prisoners and staff can refer to this service.

In 2026, we will add an extra family engagement worker for ‘Going Home’ courses and in-cell work booklets.

Video visits 

We offer video visits.

Sessions run alongside our social visits during the week and on weekends.

To access video visit, families create an account on the Prison Video app and add the prisoner to their contact list. This allows the prisoner to request a call.

Read more about video calls and the Prison Video app (GOV.UK).

Parenting/relationship courses

We have links with Sutton Council who provide:

• the parenting course ‘Time Out for Dads’
• a monthly ‘Dad’s Voice’ session, alongside our peer mentors, to give dads with the chance to speak about their families or just listen to problems other Dads are facing in custody.
  Our family engagement worker attends the group.
  Any Dad can apply to join the group via the ‘kiosk’ in the prison.

PACT offer:

• family learning booklets, which prisoners can read in their cells
• the ‘Staying Connected’ programme allow fathers to build stronger connections with their children and improve ways of communication.

In the last 6 months of their sentence, prisoners attend ‘Coming Home’ sessions to prepare for coming back to their family.

Family support 

Visiting a family member or significant other may be difficult and emotional.

Our visitors centre supports visitors to try and make the visiting experience positive for all.

We take all feedback seriously and work to be better.

Family days

We plan extended visits (including children’s days) at least 8 times a year.

These take place in the school holidays. Partners are also invited to make it a whole family experience.

For prisoners serving a life sentence, the Community Living unit also offers family days through the year.

Houseblocks 1 and 2 have extended adult visits twice a year.

Family days are advertised in the prison. They are popular and well attended.
Prisoners can apply for a place via the ‘kiosk’.

Care leavers 

When a care leaver is in custody, they can meet their personal advisor in the relaxed setting of a social visit.

We consider a joint visit with the personal advisor and the prison offender manager (or key worker) to discuss sentence / pathway plan or for release planning.

We know sometimes the personal advisor can be the only person who can bring the care leaver’s younger siblings to visit. We consider possible sensitivities around this meeting.

We are flexible in our approach and know the personal advisor may need to visit in a different capacity at different times.

We also consider how volunteer schemes can be used to provide visitors to those who don’t have them.

Safeguarding measures

Safeguarding children is our top priority. The level of risk a prisoner poses to children, will determine the level of contact they can have.

Managing these restrictions can involve monitoring mail, telephone PIN, and contact with children during visits. 

You can read more about safeguarding measures, in the HMPPS Child Safeguarding policy framework

What have we achieved?

• Scoring 141 out of 144 in our recent Family audit.
• Completed a visits survey, with feedback welcome
• Increased our family learning offer.
• Employed an extra family engagement worker.
• Started working closely with education for the National Reading scheme.
• Working closely with Sutton Council, recently holding a joint Dad’s Voice group between prisoners and fathers in the local community.
• Regular graduations and celebration events, which families can attend.

You said, we did

• Started Digital Visits on weekends following request from prisoners.
• Increases the tea bar limit at the request of families.
• Tea bar is now open on family days.
• Introduced additional hot food.
• Relaunched our ‘Community Cup’ event to support prisoners who do not have visits.
• Revamped our outdoor visitors centre play area.
• Started a monthly craft club with PACT.
• Added more face-to-face courses through PACT funded by the Small Grants initiative.

Focus for the year

• Develop strong, trusting relationships between care leavers and personal advisors to improve engagement and support outcomes.
• Continue to build staff awareness, particularly among prison offender managers and key workers, of the needs of care leavers in custody and the importance of family relationships.
• Collect and use feedback from children, families, and prisoners to ensure services are responsive, effective, and evidence‑led.
• Develop regular ‘meet the family’ sessions to enable the Family team to gain insight through face‑to‑face engagement with visitors, improving participation compared to written feedback methods.
• Work with Offender Management teams to support the inclusion of family factors in effective release planning.
• Ensure feedback is shared with prisoners after focus groups and surveys to demonstrate how their views are considered.
• Embed the ‘Community Cup’ and ensure it consistently supports prisoners who do not receive visits.
• Strengthen peer support to improve awareness and uptake of our provision among all prisoners.
• Make more effective use of our tea bar profits by planning and allocating the revenue toward family-focused activities and shared experiences, ensuring the profits benefit our wellbeing and strengthen family connections.
• Identify and pursue innovative, sustainable funding opportunities that will enable the local authority to secure long-term financial support and continue delivering high-quality programmes for the prisoners.
• Relaunch PACT in-cell workbooks and ensure prisoners know about all the resources.

How will we measure our success?

• Prisoner annual family needs questionnaire.
• Surveys conducted by the prison for prisoners and visitors.
• PACT visitor surveys.
• Monitoring complaints.
• Self-assessment.
• HM Inspectorate of Prisons feedback.
• Performance measure audit.
• Measuring the quality of prison life survey.
• Prisoner and family feedback.
• Consultation and feedback from Prisoner Council and community information orderlies.

Staffing structure

Head of reducing reoffending & family lead

Family champion & custodial manager of visits

Mailbox: Familyties.highdown@justice.gov.uk