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Thames Valley Partnership
News Update
December 2014
Issue 9
Special points of interest:
♦ News
♦ Projects
♦ Future Events Wishing all o
ur
friends and
colleagues
This beautiful
Christmas Tree was
decorated by the
young women
working on the
Modelling Change
programme.
See below for
supporters of this
project.
A Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Page 2 News Update
New Leaf It has been a busy quarter for New Leaf. We welcomed Katrina to the team as a part-time administrator
and received requests for support from 79 individuals. Work has continued on strengthening our links
with faith and community groups across the Thames Valley and we are currently looking into developing
partnerships with Kerith Community Church in Bracknell, ACT in Oxford and Launchpad in Reading to
enable us to share resources and ensure that by acting together we can help more individuals.
We have recently completed the first year of our Lloyds Foundation grant to expand the project
geographically into Berkshire and to include young adult offenders over 18 years old. We are delighted to
have achieved our targets with referrals for young adult offenders increasing
by 50%. 16% of our total referrals are now being received from Berkshire.
The number of individuals entering long term mentoring post release has
also increased by nearly 50% with over 75% of those individuals showing
increases in social inclusion (measured as positive changes around
accommodation, education, training and employment, health, drug and
alcohol misuse, families and relationships, attitudes, thinking and behaviour,
finance benefit and debt). This includes 12 homeless individuals who have
been housed directly as a result of their mentor's intervention and a further
eight who have been referred to housing agencies. Seven individuals have gained voluntary or paid
employment during their time on the scheme and a further three have gained qualifications.
Our volunteers are the key to our success and without them we simply do not have a project. We are
therefore very happy to announce that we have been awarded £10,000 from the Big Lottery Awards For
All fund to pilot new technological advances to our emergency support system for volunteers working in
the community. Thanks to Tim Netherwood, a volunteer mentor, who has been a key part in developing
the system.
In the past quarter 12 potential new volunteer mentors have been recruited and we ran one training
session for new volunteers in September and two in November in Berkshire and Oxford. Further training
is booked in Milton Keynes in January 2015. Please contact Katrina ([email protected]) if you
are interested in finding out more.
Nearly 40 volunteers, board members and a wide variety of agencies gathered at Aylesbury College on
17 November for the New Leaf event. As well as celebrating and reviewing the activities of the last year
the event was an opportunity to thank the many volunteers and agencies who offer their support and
make the work possible.
Thames Valley Partnership ‘protecting victims, supporting offenders and their families’
The Thames Valley Partnership works in partnership with the statutory, private and
voluntary sectors to provide long-term sustainable solutions to the problems of
crime and social exclusion. We work to protect victims and reintegrate offenders.
Our strength is in collaborative working and integrated approaches across sectors,
particularly linking Criminal Justice services to voluntary sector and Local Authority
providers.
The Partnership was one of only four charities based in Bucks to be invited to
attend and display their work at the Bucks Foundation Annual Supporters
Event held on 6 October at the Dairy, Waddesdon Manor. The charities
competed for £1000 voted for on the evening by over 80 attendees.
Unfortunately we did not win; the prize went to another deserving local
charity, Lindengate who use nature and horticulture to support those with
mental health issues.
Bucks Foundation Annual
Supporters Event
On Tuesday 21 October around
50 people gathered in a
Committee Room at the House of
Lords to listen to speakers and
debate issues around women in
the criminal justice system and
how the arts can have an impact
on bringing about change in their
lives.
Gilly Sharpe presented her
research findings – Doing Justice
to Offending Girls followed by a
powerful performance by Clean
Break theatre company of their
production ‘Sounds Like an
Insult’. A panel of support
workers and artists discussed
the impact of using the arts
within their settings and how a
creative approach can help
organisations meet their targets
and reach women who are most
vulnerable.
Amey plc, sponsors of the
current arts project Modelling
Change, presented their reasons
for supporting our work…
” We are pleased to be involved
in such innovative single gender
work… (Amey plc)
” Well done for the event at the
House of Lords, it was really
great to see women completely
as the focus. I really enjoyed
hearing about the research and
the project“.
(delegate comment)
Chair of Trustees, Lord Blair of
Boughton, hosted the event.
Issue 9
Arts working with vulnerable women - House of Lords
Page 3
Patsy Townsend our Director on
the Thames Valley Partnership
stand.
We are pleased to announce that we have been successful in not one
but two recent bids for further funding from the Office of the Police and
Crime Commissioner, Thames Valley. One grant will allow us to further
extend our victim-initiated and pre-sentence delivery of restorative
justice services across Thames Valley. The second grant will enable the
Partnership to lead a consortium of agencies; Circles of Support South
East, Escaping Victimhood, Victim Support and Refugee Resource – to
provide support and counselling for victims of trauma and serious crime.
New Funding for Restorative Justice
Modelling Change
Our creative project for
young women, Modelling
Change, is taking place
weekly in Oxford and being
led by a team of artists
offering a broad range of
skills. The group recently
visited Pegasus theatre to
see a play written by Kate
Tempest which will count
towards their gaining a Bronze
level Arts Award. The girls are
also working on a variety of
different visual, craft and film
activities with the general overall
theme of self and identity.
Art-i-tec
Art-i-tec is a creative
project running in
Newbury in conjunc-
tion with West Berks
Council, the Youth
Offending Team and
the Integrated Youth
Support Service. A
group of girls have
been working along-
side a photographer, two visual
artist and a drama practitioner
and building a portfolio of work
which will count towards a
Bronze Arts Award. The project
is being documented by a film
maker.
Elizabeth Fry
In the light of the successful
Women at the
HeArt project,
we worked
with Elizabeth
Fry Approved
Premises to
gain funding
through Read-
ing Borough
Council cultural
Partnership to continue to
deliver creative sessions for
residents. Two artists ran a block
of sessions enabling residents to
make pieces of artwork using
plaster, glass paints, decorating
individual boxes and inspirational
bunting. “This is fab, I don’t
want it to stop”.
For further information please
contact:
Judy Munday, Arts Manager [email protected]
background.
Work With Families
We are receiving an increasing
number of referrals from the
community including working
with a family where the offender
is due to be released from prison
and we are currently working
with them to put resettlement
plans in place.
We delivered an awareness
raising session at the John
Madejski Academy in Reading to
ten members of staff on how to
better support as well as identify
the children and families of
offenders within their school.
Networks
The Milton Keynes/HMP
Woodhill network is going from
strength to strength with an
information service provided on
a regular basis at the Prison
Visitors Centre as well as more
agency involvement with families
accessing the prison.
We have plans to hold a launch
in the New Year for a High
Wycombe network in order to
engage professionals with the
work we do and to encourage
networking is underway.
Support is being provided from a
new volunteer with a marketing
Work With Offenders
We have now delivered the first
of two sessions to offenders on
license in Buckinghamshire with
eight offenders attending both
sessions. The purpose of these
sessions is to raise awareness of
family issues with a view to pre-
venting future offending due to
an increased awareness of the
impact of offending upon
children and families. Commis-
sioned by Families First, the next
sessions will be held in February
2015. For further information
please contact: Saj Khan [email protected]
Page 4
Family Matters/Court Desk
News Update
Arts
GENERAL PROGRESS
Force Roll-Out
♦ Since the last meeting, Jersey has gone live with the new tracking facility.
♦ 26 UK forces are live.
♦ Durham and Derbyshire have recently agreed to use TecSOS, bringing the total of UK forces
committed to TecSOS to 34 out of 45.
♦ Decisions are still awaited from a further 5 forces (PSNI, Devon & Cornwall, Leicestershire,
Lancashire and the remainder of Scotland).
♦ In April 2015, 13 of the existing TecSOS forces will either move to the business model or
withdraw from the project.
Handset Numbers
♦ On 20 November 2014, there were 3,703 handsets out on issue.
♦ The total number of UK victims who have had a TecSOS device now stands at 7,660.
Activations
♦ There have been 1,391 activations.
FOREIGN MARKETS
Objective
The Vodafone Foundation Board of Trustees has approved additional funding in order to better facilitate
the take-up of TecSOS in other markets, and to also accelerate progress in existing pilots.
The intention is to build early momentum by identifying and supporting those markets most likely to
show quick and significant progress. This approach was announced to Foundation Heads at their recent
conference in Madrid.
Pilots are taking place in Germany, Ireland, and Hungary. Negotiations are now underway between
Vodafone New Zealand and the police to commence a pilot. States of Jersey have just gone live with 30
GPS enabled Nokias.
Issue 9
Presentence Restorative Justice
TecSOS
Page 5
This work has attracted funding from the Police and Crime Commissioner and follows on from a successful
pilot we were involved in last year in Oxford Magistrates Court that was initiated by NOMS. Essentially it
offers the option for RJ to be undertaken as part of a deferred sentence. This means that an offender has
pleaded guilty to an offence, but sentence is not passed until the deferred sentence period has
concluded. We are concentrating on Reading Magistrates Court initially and then spreading out to other
courts in the Thames Valley. We have been very fortunate to appoint Nicola Preston to be the senior
practitioner for this project and Nicola will support and mentor volunteer facilitators. She has many years
experience in RJ and has worked with TV Partnership previously. We are also glad to welcome back Rosie
Wallis who will identify possible cases in court for us. Rosie undertook this role during the pilot in Oxford
and is very enthusiastic about the project. Our current funding lasts until March 2015 and we are
currently preparing an application for future funding in the recently announced tendering process.
Phone: 01844 202001
Fax: 01844 202008
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk
www.newleafproject.co.uk @NewLeafProject1
Facebook.com/newleafprojectmentoring
@tvpartnership
You will no doubt have heard the news of the announcement of the list of preferred bidders for the
contracts nationwide for Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). MTCnovo Ltd (formerly
MTCAmey) were announced as the preferred bidder for the Thames Valley and London Contract Pack-
age Areas. Our Board of Trustees have welcomed this decision based on an established working rela-
tionship developed with Amey (head office in Oxford) over the last 2½ years since we first approached
them as a potential commercial supporter of our work. They currently part-fund our Modelling Change
project for vulnerable young women.
We have agreed in principle to be a partner in a Joint Venture (JV) with MTCnovo and to take a non-
profit sharing seat on the Board of Novo Community Limited; to work with the other Directors to
provide strategic guidance, principled leadership and a professional sense of direction to the JV. The
details of our role in the JV are yet to be established formally and we will be bringing in legal advice to
ensure that all risks to us are fully understood and taken into consideration. This role will be entirely
separate from any commercial arrangements that we may or may not enter into for the provision of ser-
vices for the CRCs.
The Partnership is determined through this opportunity to bring its long-established experience as a
charity operating in the Criminal Justice field to influence the management and/or the delivery of
services for offenders in London and the Thames Valley; equally we are committed to safeguarding our
charitable objects and our independence, and to retaining our values and driving principles for social
justice.
We are concerned about the scale of the change envisaged to offender services. Nevertheless, we hope
that our position with the preferred bidder for London and Thames Valley will at least give us, and our
established partners, some leverage and influence over the governance and strategic direction of
MTCnovo Ltd. We have deeply felt respect for our colleagues in the former Thames Valley Probation
Trust who have supported our work over many years and have had considerable success alongside their
partners, in effectively managing and turning around lives of many offenders.
Patsy Townsend
Director
Transforming Rehabilitation
Phone: 01844 202001
Fax: 01844 202008
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk
www.newleafproject.co.uk
Thames Valley Partnership
Townhill Barn
Dorton Road
Chilton
Aylesbury
Bucks HP18 9NA