What can visitors do

It is up to the person who you visit to decide whether, and what, to disclose to you about their background, health and healthcare needs, and their mental health.

However, as a visitor you can equip yourself to better support people in detention who do want to discuss their health or their history with you. You can inform yourself to better understand signs that someone is at risk in order to prevent individuals from harm, abuse and neglect in line with your visitor group’s safeguarding policy. And, you can build your visiting skills so that you respond in a way that does no harm and recognises and supports the resilience of people you visit.

In particular you can:

• Be aware of how detention impacts people’s health, including those with pre-existing health conditions. For more information, read Harms of detention: what safeguarding concerns do visitors come across in detention?

• Build your knowledge about issues which may make people particularly vulnerable to harm including Survivors of torture, human trafficking and modern slavery, People who lack decision-making capacity and Age disputed children.

• Have a clear understanding of your visitor group’s safeguarding policy, which should outline the process you should follow in situations where there is a high risk of harm.

• Work to build a relationship of trust with the person who you are visiting through Emotional support through empathetic and active listening.

• Strengthen your knowledge of Policy and practice for safeguarding in detention, so you can share this information with people you visit or assist them if they give you permission.

• Take practical steps if you are Worried about someone’s deteriorating mental and physical health.

• Support someone to raise a complaint about healthcare standards and/or their treatment in detention [chapter on Monitoring and Scrutiny coming soon].