Test bed regions and an OLASS “prospectus” announced

“NEXT STEPS” TEST BED REGIONS ANNOUNCED

Two Prison Service regions have been selected as test beds for implementing the Next Steps proposals released last December.  The fortunate regions are West Midlands and East of England.

So far I’ve found no official announcements on the internet about the selection of the test bed regions.  Hopefully the regions will be publishing reports in due course.  The most recent publications by the two regions are offered in the reference section below, in the hope that they will give useful indications of the direction of travel to come.

IMPORTANT “PROSPECTUS” SOON

However, a “Prospectus” will be produced next month which should shed more light.  This may prove to be a very important document.  There is the possibility of changes in curriculum that may impact teaching practice and employment.  A short round of consultation is promised for us to give our input.   Here is what Phil Hope said in his announcement on 15^th May:

“As well as developing and trialling the three core elements of our Next Steps proposals:  the Corporate Alliance, the employability contract and the campus model, the test beds will be involved with the whole agenda set out in the Next Steps document.  The Learning and Skills Council has developed a “Prospectus” for consultation to review the learning and skills offer, to ensure offenders have access to a core curriculum as one of the building blocks towards the campus model.”

(their italics)

In his speech to the conference Richard Ward, Team Leader Adult Offender Learning and Skills DfES, said that we could expect the prospectus next month.  He talked about adjusting the curriculum to reflect the needs of different classes of prison.  For example, local prisons should accentuate initial assessment and classification.  Training prisons should be responsible for delivery of longer term courses designed to improve employability.

When questioned about the likely impact of changes in curriculum Richard recognised that current overcrowding can cause prisoners to stick at local prisons, thereby blurring the boundaries of appropriate educations provision.  He said that we should not fear rapid or draconian changes.  He pointed to the importance of the consultation (six weeks long) that will follow publication of the prospectus.  Look out for the prospectus on the DfES Offenders Learning and Skills website (see references below).

OTHER SPEECHES AND NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE

Erwin James proved an engaging and effective host.  He provided a running commentary from the perspective of the authentic ex-offender, recounting the difficulties of being a prisoner:  “I learned how to make my face fit…Most of the prisons I was in; the work skills and training were at a very low level.”

Darren Johnson, former manger of Wrexham Youth Offending Team emphasised the need for a more holistic approach to reducing reoffending by young offenders.  This involves recognising the individuality of young offenders and putting more resources into intervening in the young offender’s family, neighbourhood and school environments. 

He emphasised the need to deliver speaking and listening skills that will equip ex-offenders to perform well at job interviews.  This need for presentation skills was a recurrent theme.  We hope to address this at HMP Wandsworth with a new salesmanship course designed to improve presentation skills and make our ex-offenders more employable.

DATA TRANSFER

As well as following up on the announcements from Phil Hope, Richard Ward commented on data transfer.  Problems with moving records in lock-step with movement of offenders between institutions were a recurrent theme of the conference.

Richard said that OASys had been rejected as the basis for introducing a new data transfer network for OLASS.  Given the other roles that OASys performs it was considered “too much of an operational risk”.  Richard observed that a new network was still very much a work in progress, but with a high priority.

Juliet Lyon, Director of Prison Reform Trust, spoke powerfully about the need to ensure that prison is not regarded as a therapeutic community.  She warned that some sentencing to prison was motivated by the lack of remedial support outside prison.  She pointed to the need for support outside of prison for those with mental health problems and learning difficulties.

John Stone, CE of the Learning and Skills Network, reviewed progress towards regarding offenders more as students or learners.  He anticipated the campus model delivering mainstream services including: Information Advice and Guidance, attention from an individual tutor or mentor, continuity of support across different institutions, work experience and the creation of an offender learning extranet.

We champion the use of online support for the campus model, so John’s words on the subject were particularly welcome.  We hope to develop a project to help the effort to deliver effective on-line support for the roll-out of the campus model.

JUST LEARNING? 2007 EDITION

He announced an extensive new resource of 58 case studies with key quality messages.  I’m pleased to say that our work at HMP Wandsworth on Wanno Media Centre is cited as an example of good practice.  You can get this material online or order the CD from the Learning and Skills Network (see the reference section below for the link).

Les Manton and Jim Jones from HMP Wolds reported on their considerable efforts to provide real work in the context of “meaningful activity” in a prison.  Their experience shows the need for the involvement of an outside organisation to enable enterprising activity in a prison.  This was further evidenced by Andrew Neilson of Howard League for Penal Reform (in the afternoon seminar on social enterprise in prisons).

Shanie Jamieson, Director of OLASS at Kensington and Chelsea College, started the afternoon session in a lighter vein with some roll play with a colleague posing as an offender learner.  He refused to stick to the script, which neatly underlined the need to treat offender learners as individuals.  Shanie went on to present good practice in preparation of offenders for employment in the group of prisons under her charge.

That theme was developed by Liz O’Conner (Liverpool Chamber of Commerce).  She is one of the new Job Developers that are path-finding ways to get ex-offenders into employment.  She spoke of championing ex-offenders as an opportunity for employers.  Ex-offenders can be productive employers that are “job ready”.

John Podmore, Department of Offender Health and former governor of HMP Brixton, spoke in characteristically trenchant terms about the difficulties of breaking the “cycle of exclusion” that leads to imprisonment.    We should not be put off by apparent failure.  Relapse is the norm.  He emphasised that resettlement of offenders to stop re-offending is a process not an event.

Nick Ross (Goals UK cic) completed the line-up of speakers with an interesting focus on the need to train the trainers.  That is the need for Continuous Professional Development of teachers engaged in offender learning.  This is an issue which is central to the objectives of www.thelearningjourney.co.uk .

REFERENCES

You can lean more about the Next Steps test bed programme at: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/offenderlearning/index.cfm?fuseaction=content.view&CategoryID=3&ContentID=18

West Midlands region published its commissioning plans for 2007-2008 on January 19^th 2007:

http://noms.homeoffice.gov.uk/noms-regions/west-midlands/publications/strategy/

East of England published its Reducing Re-offending Delivery Plan (2006) and its commissioning plans for 2007-2008 on January 19^th 2007:

http://noms.homeoffice.gov.uk/noms-regions/east-england/publications/strategy/

The DfES publishes its Offenders Learning and Skills website.  Look here for further announcements on the OLASS “Prospectus” in June:

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/offenderlearning//index.cfm?fuseaction=content.view&CategoryID=1

The LSN published its 2007 edition of “just learning?” which contains 58 case studies with key quality messages at: http://www.s4s.org.uk/JustLearning/ .  A CD version can be ordered from kssp@lsneducation.org.uk .

For more on the conference contact info@neilstewartassociates.co.uk .