Welcome Connections, 11th October, 7:30pm to 9:00pm, online

An evening to encourage and resource faith communities who are committed to welcoming prison leavers.

Is your faith community supporting people who have left prison? (Or do you want to?)

Join The Welcome Directory's multi-faith Welcome Connections event: sharing stories, hearing from someone who has left prison and learning about how the work of connected organisations can support you.

This session will feature Rev'd Bob Wilson sharing about Prisons Week, and the organisation Shewise, who supports vulnerable and marginalised women, including those affected by the criminal justice system.

In this session you will:

Hear the first-hand story of a prison leaver who has been helped by a faith community.

Gain an awareness of how various organisations support people who are in and have left prison, and how you can partner with them in your own work with prion-leavers.

Have opportunity to share stories, insights and ask questions about working with prison levers.

Register your place HERE.

The Welcome Directory is a multi-faith charity that has a simple yet powerful vision: to help faith communities become places where people who leave prison find acceptance. A place to belong that not only nurtures faith but also offers appropriate practical support.

Prisons Week 2023, Look Up! (8th - 14th October)

Look up!

This year we invite you to remember that the heavens declare the glory of God, and to look up.

Please share the film with your family, friends and church, and, with the leaflet available to download below, join us each day as we pray for all those affected by crime and imprisonment.

Visit HERE for more information and to download the prayer leaflets. 

Government Guidance on Keeping Children Safe in Out of School - Settings

The Department for Education has just published its updated guidance for safeguarding in out-of-school settings, which includes supplementary religious settings. Please see the links below for information on what needs to be done if you provide supplementary activities for children. Visit the link below for updated safeguarding guidance for providers and parents. 

Introduction to Spiritual Distress: Research and Implications for Spiritual Care

Webinars for Free Church and other UK chaplains

November 21 & 29, 9:00 – 10:15 am Central Standard Time/ 3:00-4:15 PM GMT

Session 1: Basic Concepts, Examples, Prevalence, 21st November 2023
Session 2: Harmful Effects, Tools for Screening, Future Research, 29th November 2023

Description: Religious or spiritual (R/S) distress includes tensions and struggles about finding meaning in illness or injury and/or tensions and struggles with what one holds to be sacred. In these webinars we will review the research about R/S distress and discuss its implications for spiritual care providers. We will also look at methods that have been developed to identify patients or family caregivers who may be experiencing R/S distress and possibly benefit from referral to a spiritual care provider.

In Session 1 we will review basic concepts and definitions about R/S distress, and we will look at several vignettes of patients with R/S distress. Then we will examine some of the research about the prevalence of R/S distress and consider its implications for spiritual care providers.

In Session 2 we will examine some of the research about the harmful effects associated with R/S distress. Then we will review some tools that have been developed to screen for R/S distress and discuss how they can be incorporated in clinical settings to improve the provision of spiritual care. We will also discuss areas for future research about R/S distress.

Presenter: George Fitchett, D.Min., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Religion, Health, and Human Values, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago Illinois. With training in both healthcare chaplaincy and epidemiology, he is one of the U.S.’s leading chaplain-researchers. In 1999 he and his colleagues reported the harmful effects of R/S distress in a sample of medical rehabilitation patients. The topic has remained a focus of his research. He is the former Director of Transforming Chaplaincy, whose mission is to promote evidence-based spiritual care (www.transformchaplaincy.org). In 2019 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University for Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Transforming Chaplaincy: The George Fitchett Reader, a collection of his research, was published in the Fall, 2021.

These webinars are free to attend thanks to support from the College of Healthcare Chaplains and the Free Churches Group

Please book your place HERE.

Big Give Christmas Challenge, The Welcome Directory

The Welcome Directory is taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge and is looking for supporters of this incredible work to pledge a minimum of £100 for which Match Funding will be sought. Emily Green, Welcome Directory Project Manager recently released the following information about pledges. Please do consider how you might be able to support this charity, started by the Free Churches Group in 2014.

We are excited to announce that The Welcome Directory has applied to take part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge - the UK’s biggest match-funded campaign!

We are raising funds for our project ‘Christmas Connections’ to combat the loneliness and social isolation that people so often experience when stepping beyond the prison gates.

To take part in this challenge, we are looking for key individuals to support us by making 'Pledges’, which will be used as match funds to double online donations made to our charity during the Christmas campaign period. We cannot take part in this challenge without you.

We are aiming to raise a total of £1,500 in pledges to take part in the campaign. Could you pledge a minimum of £100 to help us reach this target? Your commitment to funding will also help us to secure additional match funds via a Champion (sourced by the Big Give).

You can make a pledge by simply completing the online form by the 30th of August.

What is The Welcome Directory?

The Welcome Directory is a non-profit, multi-faith organisation, dedicated to supporting the resettlement and social inclusion of prison leavers by building a network of welcoming and supporting faith communities beyond the gates.

Our work helps to combat loneliness and social isolation amongst prisoners in the post-release landscape, supporting positive mental health through faith-based social inclusion for reducing rates of re-offending.

The release period for prison leavers is an extremely challenging time, with an estimated 44% of adults reconvicted less than one year after leaving prison, which can prove devastating to an individual’s mental health. Connecting a prison leaver to a faith community can make all the difference – especially at Christmas. Our YouTube video 'Beyond the Prison Gates' captures, through the voice of prison leavers, the long-term impact that TWD can make to an individual’s release journey.

Whilst a small charity, we are highly regarded within the criminal justice sector, working in collaboration with HM Prison and Probation Service.

 The Welcome Directory has been acknowledged in both the House of Lords and the Church of England’s General Synod and has increased engagement by 187% since the end of 2020.

What is the Big Give: Christmas Challenge?

For seven days, the challenge offers supporters the opportunity to double their donations. This makes an extraordinary difference to the lives of prison leavers. One donation, twice the impact!

When our online supporters donate during the campaign period at Christmas, their donation is matched by your generous pledge. So, £50 from a member of the public is immediately doubled and becomes £100 directly to support the resettlement of prison leavers. Watch their video here.

• The fulfilment of your pledge is conditional on us receiving the appropriate online donations during the campaign. You will only be required to pay a pro-rata amount of your pledge if we don’t hit our online target - it's our guarantee to you that we are committed to raising additional donations.

• Please note that if you pledge to The Welcome Directory, you will not be able to make an online donation to us during the campaign period in December because your pledge will be used to match these donations.

We are incredibly grateful for your consideration. Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with any questions about our Christmas Connections campaign.