Creating Community Connections: Tampon Tax Fund

As a partnership, Women in Prison applied for this year's Tampon Tax Fund with Brighton Women's Centre, Anawim, Together Women and Nelson Trust. We are really pleased that with this funding we are able to take forward together this work to connect women in prisons with vital specialist community support services across the country, especially women's centres.

This was third time lucky for us, having applied to the Tampon Tax Fund the previous two years as a partnership of women's services. We would like to thank the Women's Resource Centre and others who have shone light on the need for this funding to be allocated to specialist women's charities, which the evidence shows are consistently best able to meet the needs of the women they serve.

It is positive that this year more funding has been allocated to such specialist charities as we know that so many face a desperate funding situation, especially given the pressures of the pandemic. Services for women and girls have never been more needed and the case for sustainable funding (including that set out by the recent Women's Budget Group report on women's centres) is stronger than ever. It is extremely disappointing that the public spending decisions made in this week’s Spending Review have missed the opportunity to address this, while pledging to spend £4 billion on new prison places.

More about Creating Community Connections

The Creating Community Connections project aims to strengthen partnerships between a national network of women’s centres, prisons and women in custody to support women through custody to community. This will include providing trauma-responsive support to reduce reoffending and overall harm, increase women’s sense of safety and help them rebuild their lives.

The project will include building a national network of 10 Women’s Centre Link workers (linked directly to 13 women’s centres) to establish strong partnerships between women in prison, prison staff and women’s centres. The project includes developing a network of Women’s Centre Champions in prisons and working with women and staff in prisons to distribute good practice and access to specialist support in women’s centres across the country. This will help create connections with communities before women leave prison and as they are preparing for release. It will also result in a model of best practice to be replicated by other women’s centres across the UK, promoting a longer term legacy for the funding.