Dyslexia tutoring revolution
May 3, 2014 Leave a comment
The leaders of a dyslexia programme piloted at Chelmsford Prison are hoping to establish a charity to continue their work, claiming they have found an effective way to cut re-offending rates and save the taxpayer millions of pounds as a result.
Of the 17 prisoners who were part of the two-year trial at the Essex prison, only one has re-offended with eight now in full time employment, three working for charities helping others get back into employment and one is currently doing an engineering degree at a top UK University.
The report claims this is a re-offending rate of just 5.9% within a four year period, compared to the national average of 55% within two years or 68% within five years.
The authors claim there was also a drastic reduction in the amount of assaults on both staff and other prisoners due to the social interaction fostered by the project.
Jackie Hewitt-Main, founder of the project, “Dyslexia Behind Bars”, said: “We had changed their mind set, they were now respecting staff, they wanted to work with the staff because they were helping other prisoners.”
In 2006, 65 assaults were recorded against staff. By 2007, this had gone down to 21. By 2008, it dropped down to 14. But after the team left the prison after 2 years of working there, annual assaults figures shot back up to 45.
Prisoner on prisoner assaults also fell during the trial: In 2006 there were 159 reported incidents. In 2007, this dropped to 54 and in 2008 this figure remained the same.
The scheme challenges the way dyslexic prisoners were educated within prisons by introducing a variety of new methods.
Prisoners were given mentors throughout the project and multi-sensory learning techniques to account for different learning styles, including physical learning were used.
In May 2012, the findings of this final report were revealed at a Parliamentary launch and the work was praised by several MPs including Rebecca Harris MP (Conservative MP for Castle Point), Simon Burns MP (Conservative MP for Chelmsford West) and Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat).
Rebecca Harris MP (Conservative) said: “I have been trying to promote her [Jackie Hewitt-Main] unique approach to helping prisoners, for example to the Justice Secretary. Now Parliament is back in normal session, I am looking into how her method could be adopted under the Government’s desired approach to introduce a payment by results system to reduce reoffending.”
In the same month, The Ministry of Justice also stated in its Business plan that over £4billion would be spent over the next three years on what they describe as a “rehabilitation revolution.”
This forms part of the Government’s commitment to reduce re-offending rates by reforming the rehabilitation system, a policy which is pivotal in the midst of Government cuts and growing concern over the amount of space left in UK prisons.
Allen Casey, the Directorate of Commissioning and Commercial within the National Offender Management Service, stressed the importance of an individually based approach.
Casey said: “The assessment of the literacy and numeracy skills of an offender takes place at the very start of their prison sentence. This ensures that prisoners can then be offered the appropriate learning and skills development to address their literacy requirements and help them get and keep a job on release.”
Casey added: “It is recognised that this group of learners is likely to need significant levels of additional support and the OLASS [Offenders learning and skills service] providers are expected to deliver personalised programmes, using specialist staff, adaptations and resources where appropriate.”
After the initial funding which was provided by Mentoring 4 U ran out, Hewitt-Main spent six months in the prison on a voluntary basis before the next funding opportunity presented itself in the form of Next Step between September 2006 and July 2007 (the National Careers Service) and then St Giles Trust where she received funding between October 2007 and June 2008.
She said: “I couldn’t let these prisoners down, these prisoners had worked so hard for me and I had seen such huge problems in the prison; I could see how I could help these men.”
“I worked with 3 guys who had all been to prison over 40 times each, I couldn’t understand how anybody had let this go for so long, why hadn’t anyone sat down and tried to work out what was the route of the problem? Two of the men had dyslexia and the other had a head injury, what were the issues they needed help with? Was it a job? Was it the driving?”
Research conducted during the project highlighted that out of 450 men who said that they were manual workers; only 50 had obtained the CSCS (Construction Skills Certification Scheme) card, the card that is desired by many employers to allow manual labourers onto building sites.
In the initial stage of the project, all of the in-mates at Chelmsford Prison were interviewed and as well as learning about their past, including their educational and employment history, the ideal learning style for each of the prisoners was identified.
Hewitt-Main identified that 29% learn best from reading or seeing, 17% through hearing information and 54% learn through practical learning methods such as creating letters in blocks of wood.
She said: “The first thing I always do is tell the prisoner my story; it’s the most important thing that they understand that I am not a text book person and I’ve gone through these experiences to share with them.”
Hewitt-Main is herself, severely dyslexic and struggled in education.
After becoming seriously ill, she was forced to leave the prison, but continued conducting research into the issue over a 6-year period. She now hopes, along with her team of mentors to set up a centre and continue to promote the importance of finding an individual teaching approach for dyslexic people.
Professor John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University, identified the importance education in prison:
“Prisoners who receive no education in prison are three times more likely to reoffend than those who do and four times more likely to remain unemployed. That applies to both dyslexic and non dyslexic poor readers.”
“If prison staff were educated in looking for dyslexic problems a lot of this could be avoided because they could be taught to read and write properly.”
Copyright: Michael Knowles