Nacro annual review

‘Phillip hated school,’ says basic skills workerJayne Williams. ‘He went to a Welsh school first, andthen an English school, and found it really difficult.Teachers told him he was stupid.’ When he firstattended the Nacro Cymru offenders’ basic skillsproject, one of the workers found out that Phillip wasinterested in lurcher dogs. She gave him a book aboutthem on condition that he kept attending sessions. Hedid. Since then he has been working on his spelling,and would like to get a job in a kennels. ‘This place isamazing,’ he says, ‘it’s not like school. I’m finding itmore interesting to learn things, and my spelling hasimproved. I don’t feel stupid any more.’The offenders’ basic skills project, based in Rhyl,works with adults who are serving a communitysentence or the final part of a prison sentence in thecommunity. They are initially referred to the projectby the probation service because they lack basic skills– in short, literacy or numeracy below that expectedof a seven-year-old. Teaching these skills is a meansto an end: the better a person’s chance of finding andkeeping a steady job, the less likely they are tocommit more crimes. It’s a strategy that works. AsSteve Ray, Assistant Chief Probation Officer of theNorth Wales Probation Area, says: ‘I think Nacro’sbasic skills tuition has gone really well because it’shigh quality and there’s a lot of commitment.’Nacro Cymru, established in 1998, provideseducation, training and employment, housing, andresettlement services to ex-offenders anddisadvantaged people in Wales, as well as offeringyouth justice and community safety consultancyservices to local youth offending teams and otheragencies. Its Youth Choices projects, based atColwyn Bay, Wrexham, Llangefni and elsewhere,helps young people to get into education and work.Its housing projects, based at Bangor, Denbigh,Holyhead and other towns in North Wales, provideaccommodation for homeless people.In Rhyl, the Nacro Cymru offenders’ basic skillsproject has given many people a fresh start in life.Jayne Williams cites a woman who had beenconvicted of a serious offence: ‘Now she’s working,she’s passed her driving test, and she’s done reallywell.’ She firmly believes that it is never too late tostart learning. Tony, who is in his mid-fifties, needsto master IT so that he can take up the offer of afull-time job at a supermarket. Before he started atthe project, he didn’t know how to switch on acomputer, but now, Jayne says, she can’t drag himaway from it. ‘He builds model boats, you see – theones they take on the ponds. I got him to type‘model boat’ into Google, and he spent the rest ofthe afternoon on there. He thought it was absolutelysmashing.’ Tony concurs: ‘I’ve learnt a lot and gainedqualifications – I’m over the moon.’ 23