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In ‘Helping the Socially Excluded Back Into Work’ (23 Nov 08), Harry has commented that our prison work in London sets new standards.  It certainly does.  Prisoners who initially join the programme intent only on getting a job soon learn to trust their consultant and believe that the partnership between the two of them can deliver much more than just a job – a new working life with a positive direction of travel and an overarching career strategy. 

Once a person gets into the habit of planning their career, they start to shake themselves free of their immediate circumstances.  They are no longer so dependent upon their next pay cheque, but start to believe that they have their own skills and personal qualities that can survive set backs at work, or even the involuntary loss of a job.

Prison may offer training opportunities and preparation for work programmes but life on the outside, in comparison, is much more fickle, and an offender is constantly under threat from bad influences, pressures and temptations which can draw them back into offending behaviour. 

Hertfordshire Courts, Police and Probation Services are therefore taking a risk in offering preparation for work programmes for prolific offenders serving the majority of their sentence in the community.  Under the Choices and Consequences Programme, Career Energy is partnering with other experts to deliver a programme of career planning and job search targeted at prolific offenders who genuinely want to work.  But these are people who, but for their commitment to reform, would now be serving lengthy prison sentences for multiple property crimes, often to feed an all-consuming drug habit.  The road to recovery for many will be long, but without a proper process of self-discovery and experienced coaching, the chances of a person completing their journey into fulfilling work and then holding down that job, are slim.   Congratulations therefore, to the Hertfordshire authorities, for making the brave decision to invest in career planning for these people, to keep them in work, and to make their community a safer place. 

The first cohort of seven Choices and Consequences clients enters the career planning phase in January 2009.  We will post regular updates on how the programme develops.

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Tags: Career Advice, Career Energy, Career Planning, Choices and Consequences, prolific offenders, social exclusion

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Getting A New Job . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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