Pact's Family Link Workers

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Family Link Workers at Pact

Pact’s Listen to Families project includes Family Link Workers (FLWs) at certain prisons in London and in the Southeast of England: HMP Wandsworth, HMP Downview, HMP Elmley, and HMP Huntercombe. Please note that Pact FLWs are not available everywhere. Pact’s FLWs work for Pact – not HMPPS and not the prison healthcare team.

Family Link Workers are case workers who work in the prison. Their job is to be a bridge between patients, their support network, and prison healthcare teams. They can help families and carers to stay in the loop, when it comes to their loved one in prison’s health needs.

Their primary aim is to help families link up with the healthcare team and to support you to have conversations about health with your loved one. They recognise that family members and carers have an important role to play in keeping their loved ones in prison healthy and well. They work to keep families and carers involved in their loved one’s healthcare, where appropriate and in line with security measures within the prison.

FLW Key Responsibilities

  • Helping family members to share information with healthcare team to support their loved one’s care
  • Helping family members to give their input into their loved one’s care plan, if possible
  • Keeping family members aware of their loved one’s treatment plan, where appropriate, so they can make sure the patient understands their treatment and sticks to it
  • Helping family members to support their loved ones emotionally and encourage them to make healthy choices
  • Where relevant, helping family members to give input into their loved one’s release planning

Important things to consider

When someone is on the Family Link Worker’s caseload, their support will focus on achieving some defined outcomes together. Once those have been achieved, they will not have further support from the FLW, unless they make another application.

Family Link Workers are here to help you advocate for your loved one’s health needs. They can also help you if you find it difficult to have conversations with your loved one about their health. As a family member, friend, or carer, it’s important to have these conversations with your loved one because your support and involvement are invaluable in the long term.

To get in touch with a Family Link Worker

If you would like to raise a health or wellbeing concern about a loved one, please use the following email addresses.