The Hull Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) has launched a trailblazing coaching and mentoring project to tackle the problem of short-term prisoners re-offending.
The Minerva Project is the first of its kind in the UK prison service. Funded through One Hull and Working Neighbourhoods Funding and supported by Hull City Council, HMP Hull, Humberside Probation Trust, Humberside Police and the third sector, its aim is to enhance the resettlement process for ex-offenders returning to the City of Hull after a sentence of less than 12 months.
Adult males over 21 serving less than 12 months leave the prison with no support and only £42. Currently, 58.8 per cent re-offend. This ‘revolving door effect’ costs the city £60 million a year.
The two-year pilot is the brainchild of resettlement development manager Russell Waterman who launched a coaching development programme in January to help members of his 17-strong team seconded from the prison or police service use a coaching and mentoring approach with offenders in and outside of the prison.
“My big buzz is restorative practice and coaching and mentoring is needed to do this. When they start working with people who are disengaged, they will have the skills and attributes to make sure they engage with them to keep them outside.”
Some 12 employees, including Waterman, went through a four-day coaching programme designed with Keddy Consultants. Waterman hopes to roll out the training. “The police, probation service, health and social services all speak different languages and I want to give them a common language,” he said.
The programme included the TGROW and CIGAR models and a model called JAM (Just a Minute) developed by Jackie Keddy, managing director and lead consultant of Keddy Consultants. “We focused on lots of self-awareness for delegates based on CBT and TA, with Solution Focused Coaching through it. We did lots of role play and action learning sets,” said Keddy, former lead consultant of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Leadership Academy.
CDRPs are partnerships between the emergency services, local authorities, and public, private and voluntary sector agencies that work together to reduce crime, disorder and substance misuse.
Volume 5, Issue 2