Evaluations
The Arts of Desistance: Evaluation of the Koestler Trust Arts Mentoring Programme for Former Prisoners
This report presents and discusses the findings of an evaluation of an arts-based mentoring scheme that is aimed at prolonging and enhancing desistance from crime through providing former prisoners with opportunities to continue engaging with the arts after release. The evaluation focused both on the implementation and effectiveness of the ... read on →
Write to be Heard: Supporting Offender Learning through Creative Writing
The report explores the impact of a creative writing programme developed to engage ‘hard to reach’ learners in prison. The mechanism was a creative writing competition, incorporating a schedule of workshops in 28 prisons, encouraging entrants to write pieces for broadcast on National Prison Radio (NPR). Using qualitative and quantitative ... read on →
Sounding Out - Jim Cartwright
The report followed Music in Prisons as they ran a pilot ‘through the gate’ project which, through music, aimed to provide longer-term rehabilitative opportunities to previous project participants in order to help bridge the gap between life inside and out prison. The key aims were to assist reintegration; impact on ... read on →
Family Man: 2012-13 Evaluation Scope
The purpose of this evaluation is to demonstrate the long-term impact and cost-effectiveness of Family Man to policy makers, funders, prisons and practitioners; and to complement Gwyneth Boswell’s qualitative study of the revised Family Man and other previous evaluations. read on →
Young People not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) and Music Making
An evidence review of published, international, peer-reviewed and ‘grey’ literature that explores the effects of music making on NEET young people or those ‘at risk’ of becoming NEET, including a specfic review of 34 Youth Music funded projects that delivered music-related activity to NEET young people or those ‘at risk’ ... read on →
Stitching a Future - an Evaluation of Fine Cell Work
An independent qualitative evaluation into the work of Fine Cell Work (FCW) in five prisons across England and Scotland, to identify the key benefits of being involved with FCW, establish why offenders participate and continue their involvement and investigate changes in soft outcomes such as behaviour, feelings about prison and ... read on →
The Great Escape: exploring the rehabilitative dynamics involved in 'Changing Tunes'
The goal of this report is to develop a 'logic model' that can account for how Changing Tunes (CT) works as a rehabilitative strategy, outlining both the dynamic processes involved and their immediate/short-term and medium/longer-term impacts on the lives of participants. This analysis identified seven, key elements of the CT ... read on →
Evaluation of Supporters' Participation in Family Man Trials
AN EVALUATION OF SUPPORTERS’ PARTICIPATION IN THE REVISED ‘FAMILY MAN’ PROGRAMME DELIVERED IN BELMARSH, BIRMINGHAM, BRISTOL, HIGHPOINT AND WANDSWORTH PRISONS read on →
Developments in the HM Prison Service and Safe Ground Family Man programme, and the Safe Ground Network during 2007-8: An independent review
The purpose of this evaulation was to examine the developments Safe Ground had made to one of its prison interventions, Family Man, and to the Safe Ground network during the period 2007-08 following recommendations made in previous reviews. It utilised semi structured qualitative face to face interviews, telephone interviews and questionnaires ... read on →
Serious Play: an evaluation of arts activities in Pupil Referral Units and Learning Support Units
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to conduct research into the effects and effectiveness of arts projects in PRUs and LSUs. The study was also to consider the distinctive contribution that arts activities (as compared with other curriculum experiences) might make to pupils’ educational, ... read on →
The Means of Production
Evaluation of a long-term drama residency facilitated by Rideout at HMP Dovegate Therapeutic Community. The residency consituted a number of participatory performance projects and a Creative Leadership Skills course in which prisoners attended workshops about all aspects of running community arts projects. This report assesses the impact of the residency ... read on →