NICCO (the National Information Centre on Children of Offenders)

NICCO (the National Information Centre on Children of Offenders) is an information hub that provides a support service for all professionals who come into contact with the children and families of offenders. It also provides material for academics and those responsible for strategic development and commissioning of family services. Visit the NICCO website.

NICCO helps to develop, support and enhance the relationship between offenders and their families by supplying information and guidance to the professionals who are working with them both.

The Centre is delivered by Barnardo’s in partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

The Directory of Services on NICCO allows the site to become a platform for prisons to promote what facilities and interventions they provide for both prisoners and their families as well as providing details of the partner agencies who deliver them. This will support the sharing of good practice and resources as well as encouraging a consistency of delivery of family services across the estate.

The site also has a Directory of Resources which provides details of the huge number of tools, activities, practice models and guidance that have been developed by agencies to support offenders and their children and families.

The Directory of Research contains quality assessed research to inform good practice, development and study.

NICCO seeks to bridge the gap between the Criminal Justice System and community based services as well as enabling Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service to compare what is available in the area of family support services across the prison estate, by having access to the information all in one place.

In line with the recommendations of the Farmer Review the site has become the official repository of information about effective family work. As such NICCO exclusively publishes review updates as well as collating Family Strategy documents for all prisons in England and Wales

If you need any more information about the site, or wish to submit an article, news piece or blog please contact Stuart Harrington, site editor at: [email protected]