Two new director roles join our leadership team

We are pleased to announce that we have appointed two new directors to become part of our leadership team. 

Laura Bevan has been appointed as Director of Prisoner and Family Support. Laura first joined Prisoners Abroad in 2004 and has managed our prisoner and family support for over a decade. She holds a BA in French, Post-graduate Diploma in translation and has been involved with several other criminal justice organisations. She has visited prisons in Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Peru, Ukraine and Venezuela.  

Charlotte Flinterman has been appointed as Director of Resettlement Support. Charlotte joined Prisoners Abroad in 2017 as our resettlement manager and came to the charity with a Masters in Criminology and Forensic Psychology and having worked as a Probation Officer in London. Charlotte will shortly be going on maternity leave and we are pleased that our deputy resettlement manager, Rob Trotman, will become the acting resettlement manager during that time. We have appointed a fixed-term resettlement officer to help maintain our levels of support over the coming months.  

Commenting on the two new director appointments, Chief Executive Christopher Stacey said: 

Laura and Charlotte each bring a significant amount of knowledge and experience to their new roles and I am looking forward to working with them in driving forward the priorities set out in our new strategy, including broadening and deepening the support that we provide. 

With the number of new cases in prison overseas increasing at worryingly high rates over the last year, we need to make sure that we have sufficient capacity in our frontline team to continue supporting people in the way that we strive to. We will soon be recruiting an additional role in our prisoner and family support team, and we are exploring ways to secure additional funding to help us keep pace with the dramatic increases in numbers that are unprecedented in our history as a charity 

We also want to express our heartfelt gratitude to Theresa Gilson, who has left the charity. Amongst her 27 years at Prisoners Abroad, Theresa was integral to the formation over 20 years ago of what is now our resettlement support. Her unrivalled compassion and deep-rooted non-judgemental values have made a lasting impression on many hundreds of people that she has directly and indirectly supported. We wish her all the best and thank her for her invaluable contribution to our mission.