LazzarellEU: a Plan B
for ex/offenders looking for change
Erasmus + KA210-ADU - Small-scale partnerships in adult education
Our mission
Each member of the Plan B project believes that - as human beings - everyone deserves a second chance in life, independently of their backgrounds, gender, ethnicity and their action.
Through this initiative, we are improving the skills of our operators and educators in order to make our daily work with fragile subjects and people in detention constantly better.
Our mission is creating opportunities to reintegrate subjects at risk of exclusion, thus reducing recidivism rate and making society a better place.
Our project
The project LazzarellEU: a Plan B for ex/offenders looking for change aims at improving the quality of life of people in detention by favouring their social and professional reintegration. Our goal is to increase the capabilities of development of the organisations constituting the project partnership and the competences of the staff members who work on a daily base with people in prison, by exploring, analysing and sharing good practices of inclusion within and outside prison.
Project Summary
The project Plan B steams out from the awareness that no matter how well certain things are done, they can always be done better. This is particularly true when it comes to social cooperation, since only when people put their energy and ideas together, they can actually improve other people's lives. Through this project, four partners - which are Lazzarelle (Italy), Release (Ireland), Desincoop (Portugal) and Flying Broom (Turkey) - are sharing their methodologies and their tools in order to potentiate our own abilities to deal with our users and help them to re-acquire self esteem and self confidence in their own capacities.
The main target of the project is therefore represented by staff members – operators and educators who work on a daily base with our users - and our users, who vary depending on the partner and can be resumed as either offenders, or ex offenders, or women in disadvantaged conditions.
The expected results of this project can be resumed as follows:
Improving the skills of the educational staff of each partner organisation for the social and professional reintegration of prisoners, former prisoners and women in disadvantaged conditions through the exchange of good practices;
Raising European awareness, intercultural communication and transnational cooperation capacities of partner organisations, educational staff and learners.
We are doing so through four study visits, one in each partner’s country, respectively Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Turkey, in which members of the staff meet and discuss methods and tools. The point is embracing new methodologies and tools in each partner daily work and implement new methods to enrich our work and improve the quality of our job with our users, thus providing better services and making people’s lives better.
Finally, a proper manual will be produced and it will include all the methods and tools shared and readapted to different social and professional contexts, according to the local and specific needs of each partners. This guide will be published in the languages of each partner and it will represent the core of the projects, thus serving as a manual for social cooperation and social work all around Europe, inspiring other institutions and organisations and improving the quality of work of social operators and educators and, above all, enhancing the opportunities of change and improvement for offenders, ex-offenders and women in disadvantaged conditions.
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Cooperation is key
The project Plan B has been made possible by the synergy of four organisations working in the social sector and sharing the will to improve the quality of life of people in detention and at risk of social exclusion.
Our partnership
Lazzarelle, project leader for Plan B, is a social cooperative based in Naples, Italy, since 2010. It favours the social and professional reintegration of women detained in the Pozzuoli prison through their employment either in the coffee factory, which is the first coffee factory in a female prison, or in the Bistrot in the historical center of Naples. Through this process, women involved have the chance to recover esteem in their abilities and reach economic emancipation, something which is usually overlooked when it comes to women in prison, but that represents a very important, if not the most important, aspect to start ahead after detention and not to recommit crimes once one is out. Through the economic emancipation women are able to overcome their experiences of gendered economic violence of which too often they are victims and acquire the means to determine their own lives.
Release is a voluntary based association based in Dublin, Ireland, which accompanies detainees throughout the process of reintegration within society by furnishing the means to facilitate their social reinsertion, thus reducing the recidivism rate which represents a serious issue in the Irish context. It does so by fostering relationships with prisoners that extend beyond their sentence into aftercare. It facilitates holistic mentoring, coaching, rehabilitative and character development courses in prisons, and serve as advocates for employment, housing, and welfare entitlements for ex-offenders who have completed their sentence. Release is driven by the belief that restoration is possible for every person. Release provides services and programmes to 2 Dublin prisons serving over 130 men.
Desincoop is a services provider cooperative based in Guimareis, Portugal, since 2005 and active in the areas of economic, social, educational and cultural initiatives. It is built around two main pillars: the defense of human rights and sustainable development. It works to improve the quality of life of people at risk of social exclusion because of their ethnic origin, age, gender and/or disability and does so through studies, consultancy, training, elaboration of projects, support for the creation and operation of Proximity Services.
Finally, Flying Broom is a non-profit civil society organization established in Ankara, Turkey, in 2017. Its vision, which started out in 1996 with the belief in the experience of women and women’s organizations, is to create a chance for everyone to achieve a just world where women are empowered and gender equality is ensured. Aiming to raise awareness on many different issues such as violence, legal rights, inequality of representation, visibility, production and creation, Flying Broom played a leading role in bringing the problem of child and forced marriage to Turkey’s agenda. Leaving a quarter of a century behind, Flying Broom has organized meetings and panels for this purpose, produced broadcasts, made television programs, established a local correspondent network all over Turkey, and established close relations with university students.
First Study Visit
Naples, 11 - 13 May '22
Following the kick-off meeting, the partners involved in the Plan B project reunited in Naples to explore the functioning of Lazzarelle Social Cooperative.
This was a great occasion to explore in first person the methodology and the activities of the project Coordinator: an inspiring and enriching opportunity of growth.
Lazzarelle Social Cooperative: A lifelong Learning Environment
The Cooperative Lazzarelle promotes the social reintegration of women detained in the Pozzuoli Prison by offering concrete job and learning opportunities and income.
Experiencing work and economic autonomy, and collaborating daily with other workers, is essential for awareness, empowerment, life and work redesign and
escape from illegal circuits. This is especially true for women from disadvantaged groups, who are still too often economically dependent on the men of their families.
The women involved in our activities have not only not had relapses (they have not returned to prison in the following years), but have developed skills both usable on the labour market, both usable in their personal life. We have noticed, in our daily practice, that the Lazzarelle working environment is also a space for mutual help, exchange between peers and collective
growth: a lifelong learning environment.
Starting from these premises, we have proposed this guide which aims at promoting the awareness of learners, trainers, guidance counsellors, educators and social entrepreneurs about informal learning in the workplace. Indeed, it is important that people are aware of acquiring skills on the job, in order to be able to transfer them to other contexts or work situations and beyond.
It seems that most learning usually takes place informally. In a situation of work, in particular, it is above all following informal (or non-formal) learning that skills are developed. Different studies estimate it at between 70% and 80% of all learning activities.
However, the pedagogical theories derived from traditional teaching cannot always effectively account for what happens in the workplace and there is no single, comprehensive definition of this concept. They vary depending on the places in which it is taken into account.
Informal learning can be defined as the kind of learning taking place in activities of daily living related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured
in terms of objectives, time or resources. Most of the time, it has non- intentional character and it is not validated by a title or diploma. Leaning might happen by reading books, guides, manuals, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, by listening to the radio, watching television programs, surfing the Internet, attending a conference, questioning a friend, observing him/her at his/her workstation, working as a volunteer in an association. Competences and knowledge acquired through informal learning are not immediately recognized and our level of skills is higher than our official skill level.
Non-formal learning refers to learning that is not provided by an educational institution but which, like formal learning, is structured in terms of objectives, time or resources. Moreover, it is intentional. The learner knows that he is going to learn something. However, also in this case, the gains that flow from this kind of learning are not validated by a diploma or title.
Given the peculiar character and aspects of informal and non-formal learning, it might appear difficult to identify and attest the acquisition of knowledge.
This problem is partially solved by two mechanisms, which make possible to trace informal and non-formal learning starting from the
identification of their outcomes: the skills assessment (bilan de competences, in French) and the Validation of Acquired Experience (VAE). Considering competences as learning outcome gives the opportunity to measure the amount of knowledge reached through different learning methods and approaches described above.
Competences are a set of theoretical knowledge, practical skills, personal skills and attitudes. The key
competences are those that we all need to develop for personal fulfilment and growth, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment.
Measuring success
Lazzarelle's Methods & Tools
Skills Assessment: a tool for growth
As for what concerns the Lazzarelle's method, the “balance of skills” or skills assessment appears particularly effective for its adaptability to the context of the prison and to the users' needs. The flexibility of this tool is particularly useful to the purpose of preliminary assessment/self-assessment prior to each user's working experience, but it continues to be fruitful in itinere and at the end of a professional path, in terms of acquiring awareness of new skills learned on the job.
The guidance and assessment phase is particularly complex and delicate in prison, because its effectiveness depends on the establishment of an authentic relationship between the guidance counsellors and women who not only have less power, but are also deprived of personal freedom. The process can be considered successful when women finally start talking about their illegal activities.
The counsellor’s ability lies in making women understand that the skills they had acquired during their illegal jobs
could be reused differently in other activities. A great example of this mechanisms is provided by drug dealing and skills linked to this illicit activity: management skills, maths skills, problem solving are only some of those abilities which, transferred from an informal and submerged situation to a formal one, constitute a brilliant starting point for a professional career in a different field.
Not only, the realisation of possessing certain skills functions as a means to recover self- esteem and self-respect, as a motor to imagine an active transformation of one's future.
Fort his reason, the role of the guidance counsellors / coaches is very complex: they should constantly guide the prisoners to return to legality, but must at the same time demonstrate great balance, consistency, respect and transparency in the relationship with users.
How to conduct a skills assessment
Lazzarelle focuses on enhancing the individual experiences of its target group through the assessment of skills, which includes about 8-12 hours of interviews with a guidance counsellor divided into 4-6 two hours sessions.
It starts with an initial exploratory-diagnostic phase, in which the users try to answer the questions "Who am
I? “And“ What am I able to do? ”.
The users, with the help of specific paper or digital tools, are guided in the narrative reconstruction of their educational and professional history, to activate a path of explanation, enhancement and reactivation of the individual resources available.
The expected result of this first phase is the
compilation of a summary sheet of the experiences and skills acquired at school, in daily-life and / or at work.
In the second phase, the user is guided to bring out, together with the guidance coach / consultant, the attitudes, values, needs and desires for the future. The first and the second phase are preliminary steps to identify a concrete and sustainable strategy for personal and professional development.
Finally, at the end of the skills assessment process, a summary document is written together which includes the personal and professional objectives to be achieved and
the steps to follow to achieve them. All documentation is delivered to the user, who can dispose of it as he/she prefers, while the guidance counsellor is required to maintain confidentiality and respect for privacy.
The delicacy of the role of the person conducting the interview consists, in particular, in avoiding judgmental attitudes and strictly respect the ethical-ethical code of conduct of guidance counsellors.
Proving the existence of informal & non-formal learning in the workplace
As underlined before, measuring the impact of non-formal and informal learning is not an easy task, because these kind of learning processes are usually not accompanied by tests and validation procedures. This is the reason why we have attempted to list a set of criteria functioning as evidence of the efficacy of informal learning in the workplace, as they follow:
1. Being able to identify what can be learned in the workplace.
2. Being motivated to learn and improve your own performance.
3. Being able to identify what has been learned.
4. Being able to adapt to new situations that require learning to be informal.
5. Having the ability to access relevant knowledge.
6. Supporting colleagues in their informal learning.
In order to assess the learning process and to measure the skills acquired by the employees, an observational grid to be used in the workplace by the employer has been developed and shared with all project partners. The idea is to adapt this tool to different, yet similar, contexts as to follow the progressions made by each user/subject within their process of professional reintegration, in terms of new competences acquired and new forms of knowledge developed. That is why to each aspect taken into account corresponds several example of evidence that the employer can decide to consider. These examples are mainly thought for the learners, because we believe that proper learning can be reached only when one is fully conscious of what one has learnt and of the competences one has acquired.
After having used the observational grid in the context of Lazzarelle's coffee factory and Bistrot, what has emerged is that a positive work experience for detainees and ex-detainees consists in one allowing to develop both technical and professional skills, but also key competences. The key competences developed in this process are: social and personal skills and ability to learn to learn and social and civic skills in matter of citizenship. Next step of the Plan B project will be testing the observational grid within each partner's context in order to provide a systematised version of it which will be as more inclusive and comprehensive as possible and will serve as a tool of verification and track of progressions and skills acquisition of the different employees involved in the process of social and professional reintegration.
Second Study Visit
Dublin - 4th to 6th July '22
The project partners explored Release Prison Fellowship and met the stakeholders, the organisations and the social enterprising collaborating with it.
PLAN B partners also visited the Muntjoy Prison, investigating the educational and training opportunities currently available to detainees.
Release Prison Fellowship
Release is driven by the belief that restoration is possible for every person. It envision a world where people with offences are treated with dignity, supported to live transformed lives and make positive contributions to their communities.
Activities
MENTORING
Release matches self-selected or prison staff nominated prisoners with its team of trained volunteer mentors. These mentors meet to build relationships and self-esteem, and provide consistency and accountability in the lives of our service users. These relationships continue as the service user completes their sentence and is returned to the community.
GROUP WORK IN PRISON
Release teaches empathy and builds positive, sustainable support groups through our group work in prisons. Some of its programmes include Communication Skills, Restorative
Justice and Music Nights. We create relationships which extend beyond prison and assist in reintegrating back into communities.
DROP-IN SUPPORT
Release offers a drop-in facility for ex-offenders seeking support and assistance with employment, education, accommodation and addiction counselling.
PRACTICAL HELP
Leaving prison is challenging - navigating accommodation, entitlements, a changing city and technology can be overwhelming. Release helps ex-offenders build practical plans for reintegration and provides referrals to our partners in The Lighthouse, Jobcare, Pathways, Tiglin, and others.
THE TEAM
Our small staff and over 50 volunteers bring multi disciplined approaches to our rehabilitative work.
Trustees
Patrick McRann (Chairperson), Fiona Daly (Secretary),
Ellis Rowland, Raymond Kenny, Brian Gallagher ,Jeffrey Gibbon & Daniel Byrne
CEO - Philip Larragy
Exploring Release Prison Fellowship
During the second Study Visit in Dublin, the project partners explored the activities and the connections established by Release in its years of activities with detainees and ex-detainees.
Staff members of Lazzarelle, Desincoop and Flying Broom had a chance to visit the Mountjou Prison (Irish Prison Service) and met the people working side by side with subjects in detention. Despite the Panopticon structure of the prison and its size, it came out that the prison administration and educational system offer to the detainees many opportunities to refine their skills and improve their knowledge.
The project partners also visited Pathways Center: a great example of educational center founded and managed by ex-prisoner(s) which carries out educational activities destined to vulnerable subjects and people with a story of detention or addiction or both.
Being the problem of detention often linked with the problem of addiction within the Irish context, Release proposed to visit the Social Enterprise Frontline Bikes, with which it cooperates to reintegrate subjects with a past of detention and/or history of addiction.
The rational behind Frontline Bikes is renewing oneself while bringing back to life old, used bikes, donated by the community.
The meetings within Irish study visit were mostly realised at THIRD SPACE, another social enterprise employing ex-detainees by providing them valuable and concrete opportunities of training on the job and professional reintegration
The importance of Communication
Release Communication Course
Cornerstone Communication Skills Training
Communication is perhaps one the most valuable skills for a person incarcerated and it also represents a major factor in their economic and social wellbeing.
The course is designed to improve the ability to communicate in situations of stress and conflict, thus it also serves the purpose of making prisons a safer space.
Improving one's communication has been proved to reduce recidivism and increases the capacity of inmates to successfully reintegrate within society, once their detentive experience is concluded.
However, developing good communications skills also helps to reducer in prison sanctions and increases parole opportunities, by concurring to obtain better outcome in court trials.
Moreover, a better communication also improves family relationships, contributing to ameliorate the social conditions of detainees and ex-detainees and further favouring their reintegration within society.
The structure of the course consists in small group meetings conduced by a group facilitator.
The communication course has been recently updated and systemathised, also thanks to the advancement of the PLAN B project. It currently includes more advanced concepts and exercises through the introduction of work books and it is intended to enhance the learning abilities of those who have basic literacy skills.
Within the course, inclusion and participation are key elements: participants who struggle with literacy issues can enjoy one to one support and overcome their difficulties thanks to other.
At the end of the course, detainees get certified their attendance and skills.
Completed workbooks are evaluated to award high-level and low-level achievement certification and can be inserted in personal cv.
Inspiring the Future
Plan B project gets concrete: New Creation is the new social enterprise employing ex-detainees
After the First Study Visit (May 2022 - Naples) Paul Donoghue, mentor and operator at Release prison fellowship, himself ex-prisoner, has given birth to a new social enterprise called NEW CREATION. The concept is brilliant: involving subjects coming from criminal circuits and, often, with a history of addiction, within a rehab and social and professional reintegration process.
Through acceptance and psychological and emotional support, but above all throughout the creation of new job opportunities destined to people who would be otherwise excluded from the market, Paul - together with Philip Larragy and Terry-Lynn Mireault - accompanies ex-prisoners throughout a process of mutual help and growth. In so doing, ex-detainees reacquire self-esteem in their own abilities and the will to overcome their experience of detention and addiction while developing hard and soft skills.
The enterprise, not casually, consists in a cleaning service: the idea is that by cleaning spaces one can also learn to clean oneself, while working with others so rebuild their own self.
An unexpected achievement of the PLAN B project which is a great surprise and source of inspiration and change!
Well done Paul
New Creation Cleaning Services
Third Study Visit
Guimareis - 24th-26th October
The project partners explored Desincoop's activities and met the women supported and trained by the association.
PLAN B partners also visited Santa Cruz do Bispo, the female prison in Porto, coming in contact with the stakeholders and other third sector actors working with women in detention.
Exploring Desincoop Activities
DESINCOOP is a services provider cooperative, established in 2005 in the areas of economic, social, educational and cultural initiatives through innovative solutions that meet the needs of its territory, its co-operators and collaborators and its final beneficiaries - namely women at risk of social exclusion because of their ethnic origin, age, gender and/or disability.
In particular, it provides support to ROMA women in terms of educational and training opportunities, in order to favour the social reintegration of people belonging to this ethnic group within their local context.
The main activities are studies, consultancy, training, elaboration of projects, support for the creation and operation of Proximity Services and other cooperatives, social and cultural interventions in the community, based on Desincoop two strategic vision pillars: the defence of human rights and sustainable development.
Social (Re)integration & Crime Prevention
ROMA women are frequently criminalised subjects: they represent the 40% of the prison population in Porto.
Desincoop works on a daily base to prevent ROMA women from falling into criminal circuits and support ex-detainees in their process of empowerment and reintegration within the civil society.
Desincoop Methodoly & Tools
In order to prevent crime and to support ROMA women living in the area of Guimareis (Porto), throughout its years of experience Desincoop has developed a methodology based on the creation of formative and training opportunities.
The aim is accompanying ROMA women through educational and training paths, while establishing valuable relationships and consolidating groups and mutual help, with the goal of providing ROMA women with the awareness and abilities to fully understand and participate in the functioning of society.
The Social Competence Model
The Social Competence Model presents three main fundamental components, which are:
1) it works on issues related to the formation of personal and social awareness;
2) it deals with issues related to observable social behavior;
3) it deals with competencies related to planning and strategy applied to problem-solving, future
life, and interpersonal relationships.
The Social Competence Model consists in a semi-structured interview, which may take place either
in small groups or individually, and therefore can be carried out in one-to-one sessions or in a group led by two or more operators.
It can be divided, in theory, in three parts:
1) Personal and social awareness
2) Social behavior
3) Strategy and Planning
The Social Competence Model has been proved to be an effective tool in its reduced form, applicable to a variety of contexts and subjects. In what follows, the social competence model is explained and accompanied by some tips for the trainers who will further use it.
Work Life Balance
This tool can be used to support users in acquiring awareness of their needs and desires and to reflect upon their personal values used to determine their life path, in view of a further process of job
orientation.
It is constituted mainly of moments of discussion in focus groups, ranging from 2 to 5 people, and lasting around 8 hours in total, which can be divided into 4 sessions of two hours each.
In the first session, the trainers are required to explain what the Work Life Balance is about, describing it as a broad concept which includes proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) on one hand and “life” (health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development) on the other.
Through a series of activities, debates and exercises, the users together with the trainers will explore the assumptions behind their choices, sheding light on what matters for them in terms of values and priorities, therefore becoming more conscious about what they expect from a future job and how to reconcile work with one’s personal life.
PLAN B HANDBOOK
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Project Code: 2021-1-IT02-KA210-ADU-000030187