source: WAITS Team

published: 24 June 2024

Image Credit : FreeRangeStock - Unsplash

We are very pleased to announce the expansion of our services since April 2024. Thanks to new funding from National Lottery, we have relaunched and expanded our Community Integration Project (CIP) with the aim to support 100 women per year with a background of offending, or at risk of offending who have also experienced domestic abuse.

Without this intervention in place, many women released from prison relapse and re-enter harmful relationships and/or re-engage in coercive criminal activities; which often leads to reoffending or a prison sentence within 12 months or less of leaving prison.

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We have match-funded this project with a Triangle Trust grant to support the same cohort of women to access employment through employability coaching and workshops. The Goals To Employment programme is a 10-week rolling programme, where participants are assigned a job coach and engage in training sessions to gain the confidence and skills to achieve their career aspirations. 

Our employment coach will then match the skills of the recipient with agreed engaged external employment organisations. The WAITS’ employment coach will oversee the introductory meeting and ensure employee role, assigned tasks and key targets are agreed and implemented into a personalised employment training plan. The participants gain on the job work experience and gain financial independence to break the cycles of abuse and offending, enabling them to rebuild their lives.