Reducing Reoffending

On a national scale, the cost to the economy of re-offending has been estimated at £11 billion per year so even a small reduction in the recidivism rate would create significant savings. Employment is known to reduce the risk of reoffending by between a third and a half. Employment provides stability: it confers status, income, independence, inclusion and a sense of purpose. Employment also serves as a ‘hard’ outcome that can be measured as a proxy for success in reducing re-offending.

Building skills and employability
Since its inception in 1991, A4e has been finding employment for offenders – helping them to find work through our mainstream welfare-to-work contracts, specialist contracts such as JCP’s Pprogress2 to Wwork (which provides intensive support for offenders, substance misusers and the homeless) and through working with local Probation Services to help deliver the Education, Training and Employment strand of their work.

In 2005 A4e became the largest independent provider of the Offender Learning and Skills Service in prisons (OLASS). Since then we have delivered over 1.2 million hours of learning and vocational training to over 100,000 offenders. In addition to this we have used our expertise to work across the ‘reducing re-offending pathways’ – for example delivering Welfare, Benefit & Debt Advice in South West prisons.

A4e also delivers the NOMS/ESF contract across the South West, providing through-the-gate to offenders leaving custody and a range of community interventions to offenders serving a community sentence.

As a provider of services to offenders in 29 prisons and in the community, A4e aims to raise the quality and relevance of offender learning, whilst providing greater join up with external support agencies to tackle barriers to effective resettlement such as debt, drug misuse and homelessness.


Community Justice Services
A4e has recently joined forces with MITIE Care and Custody to form Com:Pact. Com:Pact is a joint venture which will bid for, and deliver Unpaid Work / Community Payback under the Ministry of Justice’s National Framework for Unpaid Work.
Com:Pact is one of only three providers on the National Framework, alongside Serco and Kalyx, which will be in place until August 2014.

Should Com:Pact be successful in securing one of these contracts, it will manage offenders serving an Unpaid Work order. Staff will supervise offenders carrying out a Community Payback placement, such as removing graffiti or painting a community centre. Com:Pact will source placements which benefit the local community and the environment, whilst offering offenders the chance to develop new skills and reduce the risk of reoffending.
To find out more about Com:Pact, visit: www.ourcompact.com 

News
A4e Justice is sponsoring this year’s Koestler Trust awards and annual exhibition.
The Koestler Trust has been awarding, exhibiting and selling artworks by offenders, secure patients and detainees for 48 years.  The prestigious Koestler Awards attract nearly 6,000 entries a year. The entries are judged by such leading arts figures as film director Mike Leigh, poet Wendy Cope and Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry. 

The Koestler Exhibition is being hosted by the Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre , and will run from from 29th September to 14th November 2010, 7 days a week 10 am to 11 pm. 

A4e also proudly invites all our staff, customers and partners to the A4e Big Art Sale from Wednesday 29th September until Sunday 3rd October. As many as 2,000 artworks will be for sale to the public, including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and ceramics. Prices will range from £10 to £300, with proceeds divided as follows:

50% to the artist
25% to the Koestler Trust
25% as a donation to Victim Support.

A4e staff will benefit from a 10% discount on all purchases.

For more information, see: http://www.koestlertrust.org.uk
 
If you’d like to know more about these services please get in touch. Click here or call us on 0800 345 666

Publications
The User Voice of Learning and Skills in Prison
We Black Men of England: Writing from HMP YOI Portland
A4e’s Working Wing proposal

Justice Newsletters
Olass Newsletter January 09
Olass Newsletter April 09
Olass Newsletter October 09
Olass Newsletter December 09 

A4e’s current services

1. OLASS Careers Information and Advice Service (North East)
This service offers prisoners impartial advice and guidance from a team that is separate from learning and skills. A4e delivers CIAS in all eight prisons in the North East of England.

CIAS team members introduce the service during prison induction and then offer a personalised service, working with each offender to identify their goals – these may be about careers, specific jobs or personal development. Advisers support resettlement plans, taking part in pre-release case conferences and signposting to support services in the community. Each month A4e works with over 1,000 prisoners, helping them to plan for a positive future on release.

2. Offender Learning and Skills Service (OLASS)
A4e has delivered OLASS since 2005 and now works in 21 prisons in South West England, Norfolk and Suffolk. We have over 400 staff delivering courses that range from basic literacy to welding. Since taking over prison education services, A4e has contributed to a significant rise in the vocational relevance of provision AND in the quality of delivery – all of A4e’s prison based provision is rated satisfactory or above by Ofsted, and we have helped raise the inspection grade in 13 prisons.

3. Improving the Employability of Offenders
A4e is the prime provider for a NOMS/ESF co-financed project in South West England, branded Way4Ward.  This two year, £5M contract is supporting 3,285 offenders across the South West. We are using a case management / Prime Contractor delivery model and include Probation Services, The Princes Trust, BME groups, specialist housing providers and social enterprises in our supply chain of subcontractors. 

4. First Steps to Employability
An LSC/ESF-funded programme operating in the North East, providing employment and skills support to offenders serving a community sentence. Delivered in partnership with Northumbria and County Durham & Teesside Probation Trusts, offenders on Unpaid Work are able to gain accredited skills whilst completing their order, and are then supported into further learning, jobsearch and employment.  A4e offers individual and group support, motivational programmes, and vocational courses such as professional driver training and asbestos removal.

If you’d like to know more about these services please get in touch or call us on 0800 345 666