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 (Katrina@newleafproject.co.uk) 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 judy@thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk

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 saj@thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk

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: admin@thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk

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: admin@thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk

Web: www.thamesvalleypartnership.org.uk

www.newleafproject.co.uk

Thames Valley Partnership

Townhill Barn

Dorton Road

Chilton

Aylesbury

Bucks HP18 9NA