Why We’re Different

Safe Ground works to reduce the risk of offending and reoffending based on a continually developing understanding of the origins and impact of crime and a commitment to empowering people to change.

Our two flagship courses – Family Man and Fathers Inside– address the complex needs of male offenders in the following areas:

1. Educational. We create a safe environment and the learning process is tightly structured. Both programmes are mapped to a number of NOCN awards, as well as Functional Skills English and Adult Literacy, requiring the student to complete a range of written, spoken and group activities in order to achieve accreditation. The programmes open a strategic path for disengaged and educationally disaffected prisoners by using drama, storytelling and confidence-building techniques to engage and motivate large groups of learners of mixed abilities.
2. Employability and Personal Development. Family Man and Fathers Inside provide the vital first step towards improving students’ employability skills by encouraging teamwork, listening and responsibility. Programme data demonstrate a significant increase in progression into education, training and employment (ETE) post-completion.
3. Maintaining Family Relationships. Evidence suggests that maintaining family ties within prison reduces an offenders’ chance of reoffending by 39%. Both programmes tackle the sensitive issues of families and parenting in a safe and constructive way to encourage family ties and contribute towards the rehabilitation agenda.

We have been guided foremost by what motivates prisoners. Our courses also flow from our interest in policy, and we have collaborated with teachers, prison staff and non governmental organisations (NGOs) to promote reforming ideas on how prisoners can be engaged. This means that our work fits into a co-ordinated effort to resettle prisoners by persuading them to address their offending behaviour.

It is not an exaggeration to say that we are leading a transformation in the way prisoners are introduced to family relations and parenting education.