A new approach- How Red Umbrella helped Mitie launch a new prison

Industry

Public Services

Challenge

Mitie care and Custody were launching a new prison in the North of England, and wanted to deal with the challeneges of stress and burnout among their staff, whilst also provided care and support for the prisoners in their care

Results

Providing bespoke training on resilience and preventing burnout ahead of the prison launched helped Mitie to equip their employees witht he skills to manage working in challenging environemtns, whilst also demonstrating compliance with the requirements of the MOJ

Key Product

Bespoke Training

300+

Employees Trained

Bespoke Training Courses over 12 months

4.2x

ROI

"The ability to help us meet our requirements from the Ministry of Justice was a key reason why we chose Red Umbrella as our partners. Their flexibility and willingness to really understand our business, and adapt to the unique demands we have has been above and beyond"

David

Regional Operations Trainer

About Mitie Care and Custody

Mitie Care & Custody is a specialist division of Mitie Group, primarily delivering critical public services on behalf of the UKgovernment. Established in 2009, the division operates as a strategic partnerto the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, and NHS England, serving as the UK'slargest provider of immigration detention management and secure escortingservices for over 13,000 detainees. Their work spans several high-stakessectors: they manage immigration removal centres (such as Heathrow IRC),provide forensic medical and custodial services to over 60 police custodysuites, and deliver facilities management for prisons. The company emphasises atrauma-informed approach focused on dignity and respect

The Challenge

Mitie Care and Custody had just won their first prison bid, and were due to launch in the spring of 2025. This meant recruiting a whole new team of employees, who would be working in a unique and challenging environment. Moreover, Mitie's philopsohy in approaching the prison bid was to emphasise the "care" part of Care and Custody. This meant a new approach to how prisons were being run, including more support for staff and prisoners alike. With oversight and accountability to the Ministry of Justice, it was important that they had the right partners to be able to support them in this vision

The Solution

Red Umbrella developed a bespoke training course around "Resilience and Preventing Burnout" to be delivered to all of it's staff ahead of the prison opening. This course focused on the challenges they would face within the prison environment, howto spot the signs of burnout and how to gain support for themselves, or support colleagues who might be struggling.

Alongside this training, Red Umbrella also put in place a safety net of counselling and therapy support to compliment the existing EAP service. Where their EAP were unable to provide counselling or therapy support, such as in response to a trauma incident, we were there to provide expert therapists trained to support their employees. this enables them to ensure that no member of staff is left without support following an incident, or where their mental health is in need of support.

It isn't just the staff that benefit from our expert team of therapists, we also have counsellors and therapists on site each week to priovide support for prisoners, specifically those that do not qualify for the NHS support that is in place on site. This again means that no one is left unsupported, and goes a long way to helping to reduce reoffending rates in a prisoner once they leave the prison

The Results

The training has equipped employees with the skills needed to adapt to the unique working environment, whilst also enabling them to support each other. This has reduced the levels of absenteeism among the workforce. By providing safety net support we have been able to give therapy support to staff that would otherwise have missed out, and would liekly have led to absenteeism or staff leaving.

Our support for prisoners has already led to improved behaviour and a reduced liklihood of reoffending among the prisoners we have been supporting