STANDOUT PROGRAMMES
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Mission Statement
Our mission is that more people leaving prison are empowered to transform their own lives, realise their potential, and escape the justice system for good. We do that through intensive programmes for people inside prison, followed by 1:1 coaching and holistic support after release for as long as required. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY People leaving prison need the best possible chance to rebuild their lives if they are to move out of the criminal justice system for good. For many people, the key to achieving that is long-term holistic support through a relationship based on trust. Based in London, StandOut is an award-winning charity (registration number 1177813) supporting people leaving prison. StandOut began in 2017 with a pilot in HMP Wandsworth and was registered as a charity in March 2018. We provide a strong foundation of support to empower people to build bridges from prison to a life outside, realise their potential and achieve a bright future. StandOut delivers intensive group programmes inside prison followed by individually tailored support after release, for as long as required. We know the route to leading a fulfilling life is not linear for most people leaving prison, and the barriers created by having been in prison only increases the feelings of frustration, disillusionment, and mistrust that many experience. StandOut’s support continues on release, ensuring the continuity between support inside and once a Trainee is back in the community. This transitional phase is a time which has been highlighted as creating the most risk of re-offending as many people struggle to find the support they need or engage with the services offered to them. New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) research shows that transitions between services, like the transition between prison and probation, are critical moments for individuals, yet only 0.6% of current funding for specialist criminal justice charities goes to initiatives focused on this. StandOut Coaches work with Trainees for as long as they need, supporting them to engage with probation and other statutory services, as well as ensuring they have access to the skills, opportunities and information required to effectively move forward in their lives.
About This Cause
THE STANDOUT PROGRAMME Phase 1 – The StandOut course: StandOut’s support begins with an intensive course inside prison to prepare people for life outside. Group work is combined with in-depth 1:1 sessions so that coaches can get to know each person’s needs and their hopes for the future. The twelve-session course includes modules which support Trainees to: ● develop positive mindsets and new ways of thinking, building confidence, motivation and self-worth ● overcome trauma and building the resilience needed to handle setbacks ● develop key life skills in communication, leadership, and organisation ● engage with employers who believe in second chances for prison leavers, including support with CV writing. StandOut coaches create a safe space where people can discover who they are and what they are capable of achieving. They build non-judgemental and honest relationships, based on trust, which are crucial for the next phase of StandOut’s support. Phase 2 – Preparation for release: After the course, coaches continue to offer 1:1 practical support in prison and work with people to plan for life and work beyond release. This work often involves collaboration with other support services such as housing and substance misuse recovery workers to ensure a joined-up and personalised approach to the priorities of each Trainee and the support they might need. Phase 3 - Post-release support and coaching: The hard work really starts when people leave prison. Contrary to what many think, release from prison isn’t always an exciting prospect for people. There is often a great deal of uncertainty about the first days and weeks, and very few people are ‘ready’ for work straight after prison. Our community and post-release support looks different for everyone. It is individually tailored to each person and their plans to build stability in their lives. This can include support with housing, recovery from alcohol and substance misuse, issues with family or difficulties with mental health. Phase 3 support enables people to develop the stability in their lives that is essential if they are to thrive and to move forward into employment or training. STANDOUT’S WORK We currently deliver our unique programme in three prisons; HMP Wandsworth, HMP Pentonville, and began delivery in HMP Wormwood Scrubs in October ’22. In each financial year we aim to deliver at least five StandOut programmes per partner prison, and in total we would expect to work with 150-180 people across the three prisons. Of those people who work with us in prison, 80+% have traditionally elected to continue with our support on release in the community. We have recently started to offer the programme to those on remand. The remand population in London prisons is growing, primarily due to court backlogs caused by the pandemic. People in prison on remand have limited access to rehabilitation programmes, despite potentially months of waiting for a court date. StandOut is pioneering supporting people on remand and successfully including them with sentenced prisoners in our programmes. In the community we will continue to offer our holistic support on release to men who have completed the StandOut programme inside prison. This includes our own job club called ‘Career Hub’, 1:1 coaching and support with essentials such as clothing and small grants for travel and accommodation costs. To date we have issued over 330 grants to people leaving prison, with an average value of £40. We are continuing to develop our support in the community, with increased engagement with a wider range of employers and our ‘Experts Beyond Bars’ (EBB) group. Named by themselves, EBB is a group of StandOut Trainees who meet regularly to discuss topical social justice issues, contribute to policy debate and play a key role in shaping the strategy and direction of our work, ensuring that it remains rooted in the reality of life after prison. EBB have helped shape StandOut’s Career Hubs and provided essential feedback on StandOut’s new safe working practices. “Thank you for giving us a space to communicate with you all. It's genuinely appreciated that our experiences, voices and opinions are heard, matter, and may hopefully positively impact the lives of others who have not yet experienced the light that StandOut helps to shine in (for many) a very dark time.” StandOut Experts Beyond Bars Member StandOut’s continued growth and development can only be sustained with the right infrastructure and back-office staff, dedicated to improving our systems and processes and well as supporting frontline staff to deliver high quality programmes. We have appointed several new roles this year to support this growth; a Head of Operations, a Fundraising Manager, and a Communications Officer. We are also due to recruit a Finance Manager in the new year, replacing a consultant, and moving our Founder into a paid CEO role to reflect the need for long term strategic oversight. IMPACT Since the first pilot programme in 2017, StandOut has grown to a reputable and robust organization, providing life-changing resettlement support across three London prisons to people leaving prison - one of society’s most disadvantaged and overlooked groups. Since becoming a charity in 2018, StandOut has provided its unique through-the-gate coaching support to over 300 men, enabling them to develop the self-belief and skills required to transform their futures, positively impacting their families and communities too. We are proud that over 80% of Trainees have continued to work with our coaches after release and believe this is testament to our relational approach and commitment to the individual. Our Trainees predominantly live and work in Greater London, though we do have some who move out of the area and we continue to support them remotely through regular calls and updates. We utilise Salesforce CRM for the coaches to record all work with Trainees and have developed a set of reports and dashboards which provide an overview of outputs. We are committed to monitoring, proving, and improving our impact at every stage. We measure success through regular tracking including the number of workshops held, demographics of participants and the percentage of people who engage with StandOut for support after being released. During the programme in prison, we monitor Trainees’ progress against five ‘work-readiness’ indicators including communication and confidence. We also measure changes in trainees’ wellbeing using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). After release from prison, we monitor each Trainee’s employment, training, and education (ETE) status outcomes at 3 monthly periods up to 15 months from release, as well as other markers of stability such as accommodation, recovery from substance misuse and mental health needs. Our aim goes further than ‘reducing reoffending’ but we believe that a crime-free life is one of the many indicators of stability and we collect information on this, with the aim of getting reoffending data from Justice Data Lab once we have a large enough data set. We also collect anecdotal evidence of the impact of our work through a growing number of quotes, blogs, and Trainee feedback forms. Our monitoring of Trainee outcomes demonstrates that StandOut Trainees have more positive outcomes than the general prison population. According to recent Ministry of Justice figures, 17% of men leaving prison have stable employment six months after release, and 42% of those leaving custody are re-convicted within 12 months of release . With our support, StandOut Trainees are three times more likely to have found employment within six months and twice as likely to remain out of prison within their first year of release. We expect to continue to show this impressive impact, despite the challenging environment of our work. StandOut has been recognised nationally for its outcomes and impact in winning the prestigious Robin Corbett Award for Prisoner Reintegration 2021. We are proud to have received this recognition so early in our journey and see the award as a real endorsement of our values and unique approach. We also won The Chris Donovan Trust Empowering People Award in 2022 and we were shortlisted for the Criminal Justice Alliance Award for ‘Outstanding Regional or Local Organisation’ in 2021. In September 2022 we published an impact assessment completed by an external evaluator, Russell Webster. The evaluation found that StandOut has developed an impressive and effective programme to help people in prison and on release maximise their chances of living a personally fulfilling and crime-free life. StandOut works with a client group who are, in general, entrenched in a criminal lifestyle and have experienced a disproportionately high number of life challenges. The full report can be found here, however, in the conclusion, he highlights; “It is clear that StandOut has developed an effective holistic resettlement model which is valued by prisons, partner organisations and, most importantly by the participants themselves. The programme is unique in its approach and has proved successful in engaging participants on release and in helping them find work and supporting them in resolving a wide range of difficulties.”