Safe Heating For Probation Hostels

Contour has been involved in the re-design and refurbishment of a number of probation hostels within the UK. Their heating solutions ensure product longevity, whilst protecting users from injury and harm.

This post aims to highlight the heating design considerations when specifying radiators and other heating solutions in probation hostels.

What Are Probation Hostels?

Primarily located in various communities, probation hostels are occupied from some of the riskiest individuals as they are released from prison. Acting as a ‘halfway house’ between prison and home, they have two primary roles:

• To help rehabilitate and resettle some of our most serious offenders
• To make sure that the public are protected in the offenders’ early months in the community

According to Probation Hostels’ (Approved Premises) Contribution to Public Protection, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (2017), Probation Hostels,

“Provide a structured re-entry into the community, chiefly to those who have been released from prison following serious violent and/or sexual offences. Most hostel residents pose a high or very high risk of serious harm.

However, it is the risk of serious harm combined with complex needs that makes work with offenders in hostels challenging. Given the profile of the risk of harm for hostel residents, the great majority of these cases are managed by NPS staff.

Hostels are staffed 24 hours a day and balance care with control. They impose various constraints on residents’ freedom. These include curfews and check-in times during the day, regular drug and alcohol testing, welfare checks and room searches.

Serious breaches of a hostel’s rules or any licence requirements, or increased concerns about risk of harm to others, will lead to residents being quickly recalled to custody”.

There are several key elements that we can pull from the definition above, including:

• Inhabitants will have been found guilty of serious violent and/or sexual offenses
• Most residents pose a very high risk of serious harm
• Regular Drug and Alcohol testing
• Room searches

You can read the full article, here.