The purpose of the Generating Genius Fresh Start is to educate young offenders with the necessary knowledge, skills, career guidance, information, advice and mentoring to enable a seamless transition into employment, apprenticeships or further education on release. This is a talent development program, where teachers educate vulnerable students in coding skills and business knowledge.
Statistics show that half of all crime is committed by people who have already been through the criminal justice system. The cost to the taxpayer of re-offending is high. Poor education is the biggest barrier. There is evidence that the quality of education offered to young offenders is irregular and of poor quality. In the UK, uneducated, young ex-offenders are at high risk of re-offending.
This project will give these young people a direct step into a work based apprenticeship. We target offenders who are about to be released. The first step is to give students a knowledge base in computer coding before release. After release, we give students an apprenticeship soft skills education for four weeks. When this is completed the students will then be able to apply to a range of technology companies, who have already decided to hire some of our young people.
Generating Genius will provide an accredited apprenticeship programme tailored to the needs of Feltham Young Offenders Institute. The programme will address the individuals skills needs, provide work readiness support and undertake employer and apprenticeship brokerage activities to enable individuals to progress into sustained employment/apprenticeships/education within a period of 12 weeks.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
