The prison system in the UK is a breaking point with an ever increasing population and challenging staffing issues. Innovation is needed to help reduce reoffending and pressure on the criminal justice sector.
Supported by EU Erasmus+ funding, the Social Enterprise: Pictora has been for two years working with partners across the EU, on a project which has developed and tested a range of tools to help prisoners with resettlement back into the community.
The focus has been to help prisoners develop their creative thinking and understanding of our societies new connected economy, helping the development of new social capital to support sustainable resettlement.
Human creativity is endless, but for offenders the words “No!” and “it will never work” dominate.
Creativity allows an offender to learn about themselves; to develop to their fullest potential and to survive in an ever changing world, with many mutually reinforcing strands supporting resettlement.
Our economy and society today is about exploration, risk-taking, personal production, networking, making connections, active participation in society and our economy.
For sustainable resettlement offenders and ex-offenders need to embrace this new economy, they need to be able to develop their creative capabilities and understand how to make positive connections to increase their Social Capital.
Financial cuts equate to reduced staff to support offenders in their resettlement, but by understanding the dynamics of the Connected Economy and having the courage to excavate their creativity, a new world of economic and social support opportunities becomes accessible. Sometimes it’s a small creative connection that makes a life time of difference. It’s all about ‘connections for sustainable resettlement’.
The FREE Create 4 Life conference on the 4th July at the British Library, Euston Road, London, explores:
- The challenges to resettlement in the 21st Century
- Why creativity is important in a changing society
- Why understanding and engaging in creativity and the connected economy is important for offenders
- The impact and project evaluation
- A taster of the training modules created
The conferences guest speakers Ralf Alwani and Lizzie Raby from the Royal College of Art – Helen Hamlyn Centre of Design. Ralf and Lizzie will be talking about the importance of creativity in a changing society, with a focus on their work in the city of Derry – Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Running through the city is the fast flowing River Foyle, acting as a natural divide between the two sides of the city. For various reasons this waterfront has become synonymous with negative connotations.
Against this back drop of 500 years of history, Ralf and Lizzie will explore how creativity and design thinking have had a positive impact on the local community who so often feel disconnected and dissociated, feelings often felt by prisoners and ex-offenders in the community.
What lessons and innovations can one learn and shared, to deal with the challenges in today’s prisons and with disconnected and often dissociated offenders/ex-offenders.
Building on the work of the Erasmus+ project, the conference will see the launch of a new distance learning programme for prisoners: Creative Sustainable Solutions.
For full conference details visit the Pictora website: www.pictora.org
CLICK HERE: For the full conference programme
FREE delegate places are available by emailing robert@pictora.org
Press release distributed by Newsmakers on behalf of Pictora, on Thursday, 15 June 2017. For more information subscribe and follow https://twitter.com/newsmakers_pr .