Always Hope - Supporting young adults with experience of care and custody
From a report by the Innovation Unit
Care experienced young adults (18-25 years old) are over represented in the prison system. Approximately 25% of all adult prisoners have had experience of care, compared to 1% of the general population.
Many care leavers lack family support and other positive relationships, and are sometimes more vulnerable to negative social networks such as gangs and unhealthy, exploitative relationships – increasing their risk of getting involved in crime and being imprisoned. The care system itself, as well as any past trauma can contribute to having a profound impact on the young people.
Frontline practitioners from prison, probation and leaving care services have limited resources and high caseloads. This means practitioners don’t get the chance to share their expertise and ideas. Communication between services can be patchy and sometimes opportunities to work together to find suitable housing and employment are missed. It is difficult for the young adults to know what support they can expect to receive and from whom.
The Innovation Unit has been working with partners in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, the National Probation Service, Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton local authorities, Family Rights Group, Prison Reform Trust, Catch-22 (NCLBF), Care Leavers Association and Barnardos, to improve outcomes for young adults with experience of care and custody during their time in prison and on release back to their community.
Together, as a partnership, they have co-developed the four elements of the Always Hope project:
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Creating an integrated plan for each young adult by aligning statutory assessment and planning between practitioners in the prison, probation and leaving care services.
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Developing a sustainable and coordinated support network for care leavers, both for when they’re in prison and when they’re released.
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Identifying care leavers in custody, including working with peer mentors in prison to encourage those with care experience to self-identify, and increased awareness training for prison staff on how to identify such young people.
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Training for all organisations and people to build a shared understanding of care experienced young adult’s strengths, needs and vulnerabilities and to learn about the scope and boundaries of each other’s roles.
The aim is to reduce reoffending, enable rehabilitation and increase the chances of a positive future for the cohort of young adults.
As part of this initiative they have developed an handbook and manual which contains accessible protocols, learning materials and tools to help future adopters understand and adapt the model to their context.
They will provide an external evaluation of impact in December 2024, however they already have interim evaluation data telling them that practitioners in the pilot were better able to collaborate with one another and young adults were able to understand and engage with meetings with professionals, giving them more clarity on their support:
Download the materials here.
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From a report by the Innovation Unit, 21/11/2023