Our Plan B Presentation
Have a look at our Presentation for the Plan B Project in Portugal
Philip Larragy is CEO of Release and a Director of The New Creation Reintegration Project managed by Release Prison Partnership, based in Dublin, Ireland. The New Creation project is a component of an EU Erasmus+ project called A PLAN B FOR EX-OFFENDERS LOOKING FOR CHANGE - 2021/2023. The partners in this small-scale project are located in Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Ireland.
Background
The Plan B project has the general objective of contributing to the improvement of the quality of life of prisoners and promoting their social and occupational reintegration. In particular, the specific objective is to increase the development capacity of the organisations and the skills of the personnel who work daily with prisoners or ex-prisoners. The proposed activities are oriented towards the exchange of good practices, the transfer of know-how, procedures, guidelines between operators who work closely with prisoners on a daily basis.
Process
Following the Kick-Off meeting held in Italy, and follow-up events in Dublin and Portugal, plus a near-future event in Turkey following by a wrap-up in Italy. Release used the learning experiences of each event thus far to breath life into a dormant social enterprise project which started in 2018.
The idea of the project was to create a social enterprise which would be led by and staffed by persons with lived experience of imprisonment or recovering from social disadvantages following substance addiction and rehabilitation. Our initial social enterprise ideas were radically changed by our experience of visiting the Plan B projects in the partner countries. In Italy we visited a Coffee Manufacturing facility based in a women’s prison where inmates were trained in the full production process. Following their training and reintegration process, many of them became employees of the cafés who served the product they had been producing.
In Portugal we witnessed a multi-faceted employment and training operation in another women’s prison whereby the inmates could choose to work in a selection of workshops which provided light assembly and packaging services for external businesses. This in-house training and employment provided them with employable skillsets when released from prison.
In Ireland we held a Plan B Erasmus+ dinner and presentation evening that included a wide range of presentations from persons from across Ireland who directly or indirectly support prisoners or ex-prisoners. This successful event enabled Ireland and its Plan B partners to gain an awareness of and connected with a number of organisations that provided [or directly the] rehabilitation of ex-prisoners into society. One such facility is a bicycle recycling facility who employs persons which include former prisoners. They provide professionally trained in-house support and counselling services to their trainees.
Project
Release’s dormant social enterprise strategy was revived by Paul Donoghue, who is part of the Release Plan B Erasmus+ team and founder of the social enterprise, with the inception of “New Creation Cleaning Services”, formed as a social enterprise and a not-for-profit company. It was designed to be a “side-by-side” work training and rehabilitation service, focusing on the reintegration of the trainees who would otherwise be far from joining the labour market.
This initiative creates new opportunities in education, training and employment for people coming from social disadvantages, addiction and offending backgrounds.
This is achieved through the means of providing external cleaning services for commercial buildings and private homes, whilst supporting trainees through;
Mentoring;
Skills Development;
Addiction Recovery Support; and
Employment Progression.
New Creation’s strategy is to offer a franchise to trainees who complete a satisfactory training period, demonstrate the ability to manage their own business and continue to control their offending behaviours which previously caused them to live chaotic lives.
Paul’s insists that New Creation will strive to always be the best it can be, offer a top- quality service at competitive prices whilst providing A1 service to customers who support its reintegration objectives. Paul’s tag line, “A Labour of Love”, will hopefully demonstrate that by loving our trainees, while supporting [and the] quality of work, we will always be the first choice by customers.
What Erasmus+ did for us
In the first instance we are grateful for the funding which allowed up to put a project team together which could then travel to other EU partner countries to learn and share together. Each partner team is contributing to the group learning through activities which are oriented towards the exchange of good practices, and the transfer of know-how, procedures, guidelines between operators who work closely with prisoners and disadvantaged people on a daily basis.
The knowledge gained in this process was the key motivator for us to reignite a dormant project, with confidence and some funding.
The delivery of our public meeting in Dublin in July 2022, gave us a new profile among the statutory and voluntary civil society community and opened many doors to further learning opportunities with existing social enterprises. Since launching this project, we have received local and national attention in social media and on national radio.
Disclaimer: “Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.