In February 2010, the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition and the Ministry of Justice announced the creation of a joint £2m fund to divert women from custody. The Women’s Diversionary Fund focuses on:
- Supporting organisations to develop new one-stop-shop services for women offenders
- Developing existing one-stop-shop services further
- Building the capacity of the women’s offending sector

The projects supported are:
Nottingham Women’s Centre – to develop the centre’s services and diversionary activities for women offenders
Advance – to fund a criminal justice worker for its Minerva women offenders’ project in Brent and Hammersmith & Fulham
The Relationships Centre – to develop their services for women offenders at Halton Women’s Centre
Novas Scarman Group – to provide a court and outreach service for women offenders in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire
One25 – to fund a criminal justice caseworker to work with female street sex workers in Bristol
YWCA England & Wales – to develop their services for women offenders in Cornwall
Hafan Cymru – to expand its work with young women offenders in Powys and Ceredigion
Clean Break – to expand its work with women offenders in London
The Women’s Centre Forum (grant held by WomenCentre Ltd) – to develop and independent national forum for diversionary and community services for women offenders and women at risk of offending.

The Howard League say:

These annual awards are a wonderful opportunity to highlight all the outstanding work going on around the country to make our neighbourhoods safer. Community sentences are proven to reduce reoffending and allow people to make amends for what they have done and live law-abiding lives.
The work of the winning schemes will be publicised locally and nationally. The award winners will be invited to a conference and celebratory event to be held on 20 July 2010 at Kings Fund, London. Max Clifford will be our keynote speaker who will address the conference on ‘how to promote community sentencing’.

Do you know of any community programmes, which you think should be considered? Nominations should be received by 4 May 2010. Further information on the awards can be found by visiting http://www.howardleague.org/community-programmes-award.