The concepts of 'prison' and 'work', framed in the broader notion of employability, play an important role in imagining and designing more inclusive societies. European prison population currently amounts to almost half a million male prisoners and around 30.000 female prisoners, most of which come from disadvantaged backgrounds (disrupted families, migrant origin, extreme poverty, unemployment, weak social networks) and have experienced troubled educational paths. The re-offending European average is 75%. Involved Countries (Italy, Greece, Cyprus and the Netherlands) experience some differences (e.g. number of prison population, availability of educational programmes, reoffending rates) but share some common challenges and experiences: - Social and educational disadvantage of prison population - Weak measures to ease ex-convicts’ transition back to civilian life (in particular in CY, IT, GR) - A lack of alignment between internal inmates working experience and external working careers - A lack of comprehensive strategies fostering employability for convicts/ex-convicts - Lack of specific tools to advocate for the relevance of policies promoting education, employability and support for social reintegration of convicts - Lack of evaluation tools to assess the usefulness and impact of education policies showing for the overall society - Ongoing successful piloting experiences that provide employment guidance and training opportunities to convicts - A need for a continuous update for practitioners working directly with convicts to promote their social re-integration. CUP partnership is made by a mix of various organizations (Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, 6 prison administrations –1 in IT; 1 in NL; 1 in CY as full partners and 3 GR institution as associated partners through MINISTRY OF JUSTICE -GENERAL DIRECTORATE OF CRIME AND PENITENTIARY POLICY; a third sector organization (Casa di Carità), NGO (Human Rights360) a public organization (EPANODOS) and a Sme (TIRANTES) working on training opportunities for convicts; the European University of Cyprus, school of Humanities Social and Education Sciences; Fondazione Zancan, expert in evaluation practices) and external partners (Bureau Nazorg Dutch local authority for ex-convicts reintegration and Estabelecimento Prisional de Leiria Prison in Portugal). CUP has a threefold aim: 1. to design successful training modules (e.g. modules based on technical skills as a mean of embedded learning for soft and basic skills) aimed at enhancing convicts/ex convicts potential for medium-long term employability. Specific focus will be devoted to soft skills, identified by employers as a core selection criteria when hiring. The strong involvement of administrators and practitioners working with prison population will be key to allow for short term and long term impact. 2. CUP will promote an overall culture of evaluation: since not all countries can rely on strong tools to understand the true impact of the programmes designed to promote convicts/ex-convicts employability and social reintegration, CUP aims at offering an evaluation kit (easy-to-use, scalar) that prison administration and third sector organizations can use to measure the progress and the impact of actions promoting primary target employability. The design of the evaluation tool will allow replicability of its main features beyond the partnership borders. 3. given the relevance of various concepts such as: education in prison, employability training, evidence based policy design, evaluation in prison contexts, the need to counteract stigma that contribute in creating an hostile environment for social reintegration of convicts, CUP partnership is committed to develop a “Call to Action strategy” targeting policy makers and stakeholders to advocate for such concepts. Two are the main target groups of CUP project: PRIMARY TARGET (male, female, young convicts and ex-convicts close to end sentence or on alternative measures): WOMEN: up to 70 (up to 40 coming from Turin Prison in Italy and 30 coming from Eleonas (Thiva) Prison in Greece MEN: around 120 convicts/ex convicts aged 18 to 55 (20 in NL coming from PI Vught +40 in CY coming from Nicosia Prison +60 in GR coming from Chalkida Prison) YOUNGSTERS: 20 young adults up to 18 years old coming from Avlonas Prison in Greece SECONDARY TARGET: A broad range of social professionals (i.e. educators, service managers, case managers) working to provide training for convicts/exconvicts and facilitate their work and social reintegration into society. CUP will directly involve around 10 prison practitioners from each Country and expects to involve indirectly around 20 more practitioners per Country.
CUP achieved these main objective: It developed successful training modules aimed at enhancing convicts/ex convicts potential for medium-long term employability. The modules were devoted to empower soft skills, identified by employers as a core selection criteria when hiring. It promoted an overall culture of evaluation: since not all countries can rely on strong tools to understand the true impact of the programmes designed to promote convicts/ex-convicts employability and social reintegration. CUP offered an evaluation kit that prison administration and third sector organizations will use to measure the progress and the impact of actions promoting primary target employability. It achieved at local, regional, national and EU level a transformation to the mainstream conception of prison education through the recognition by stakeholders and policy makers. The project allowed the experimentation of the new approaches as a method to obtain greater effectiveness of results for detainees. More over, in perspective, the resulting intellectual outputs will be used within a Massive online open course as a way to achieve a broad diffusion of the results and to make CUP tools and learning outcomes always available at a global scale.
CUP promoted social inclusion by targeting prison convicts, one of the most disadvantaged learner populations worldwide. An important component of education in prison is often the completion of formal education of inmates. While this is a key element to facilitate social reintegration and increase their overall educational level, CUP has been working on creating the missing link related l to specific skills (technical/soft) and training necessary to enhance convicts/ex-convicts' employability to its full potential. Moreover ex-prisoners face work discrimination when try to return to a normal life and CUP project aimed at closing that gap.The project contributed to reducing disparities in learning performances through the participation of inmates training and educational pathways and through a comprehensive social reintegration.The strong commitment on fostering an open dialogue among public institutions (Ministries, municipalities, universities,Direction General for Penitentiary Admin.) social operators, third and private sector, cultural organisations, international organizations (ITCILO, ETF) has contributed to build the bridge between prison and the community outside by trying to change the narrative and weakening the stigma.