EX-CELL SOLUTIONS AN EX-OFFENDER LED WORKER COOPERATIVE ‘CO-OPERATING OUT OF CRIME’

WHERE WE’VE COME FROM Established 2001 as aspire in Manchester to provide real, paid employment for homeless ex-offenders and provide support to make that employment sustainable Commercial activities - Fairtrade catalogues, domestic window blind supply and fit, kerbside clothes recycling. Step-up programme 100% wage subsidised by department for work and pensions : the ex-cell programme – esf 100% wage subsidised work trials and employment agency for offenders 2009 – present: independent ex-offender-led workers cooperative – job brokerage, self employment training and cooperative development with ‘wrap around’ support ‘cooperative and mutual approaches to reducing reoffending’ ministry of justice research and development cabinet office mutual support programme Kent, surrey and Sussex probation mutualisation

WHO WE ARE 5 members, 3 of whom are employed as core staff 5 associates, national and international authorities on cooperative development, criminology and ‘desistance’ and creative work with offenders and ex-offenders Core staff Dave Nicholson – managing director, background in probation and local economic development Ormond Williams – support director, background in engineering and business development Bobbie Unwin – women's programmes director, background in finance and administration

ASSOCIATES Jo Wilkinson creativity for change, project director (cobs2) Beth Weaver criminologist, Strathclyde university. Authority on desistance-supporting community sentences Gareth Nash Cooperative development specialist. Authority on cooperatives in criminal justice in the uk Cliff Mills Cooperative legal specialist. Authority on legal structures for cooperative community sentences Eileen Fenerty-Lyons Operations manager, public sector prisons north west. Authority on innovative prison regimes

WHAT WE DO Job brokerage and employment agency for offenders (probation partnership) ‘Mind your own business’ self employment training and support for offenders (probation and prisons partnership) ‘Powerseller’ online trading training and support for offenders (private partnership) Cooperative development with offenders and ex-offenders (cooperatives uk and cooperative group partnership) Research and development – ‘cooperative and mutual approaches to reducing reoffending’ (ministry of justice partnership) Policy development – ‘cooperating out of crime’ (ministry of justice and national offender management service partnerships)

SERVICES AND PROJECTS WITH OFFENDERS IN THE COMMUNITY Merseyside together – cooperative housing, training and employment in construction trades W.A.G.E.S. – Women offender cooperative employment and support Co:here – turning probation into a cooperative owned by staff, offenders, victims and local community Research and development – cooperative and mutual approaches to community-based sentencing

MERSEYSIDE TOGETHER Housing cooperatives bringing empty properties back into use by training and employing offenders in construction trades ‘Flats above shops’ – housing and employment for offenders in flats above converted retail units providing cooperative employment opportunities Partnership with cooperative housing sector, private sector building contractors and public sector prisons and probation

W.A.G.E.S. ‘Women’s action to gain economic security’ Long term business and resettlement support network for women graduates of the ‘mind your own business’ programme Partnership between women service users (offenders) and private, public and cooperative and social enterprise sector support agencies Mutual trading opportunities and mutual resettlement support

CO:HERE Former public sector probation trusts in Kent, surrey and Sussex (s.E. England) forming a cooperative owned by staff, offenders, victims and local community to provide probation and community justice services in s.E.England ‘Co-producing strong communities’ “recognizing that the process of desistance, and the people who support it, extend beyond penal practices and practitioners, the focus here is on how practitioners might begin to reconfigure their relationships with and to individuals, families, groups and communities in order to co-produce desistance” Beth Weaver “co-producing desistance: who works to support desistance”

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE Continuing research and development of cooperative and mutual approaches to community sentencing [We]”need to look beyond the practices and proclivities of the justice sector to find new ways to support people, communities and organizations to develop co- productive or collaborative relationships and responses to the issues and challenges they face. Desistance-supportive policies and practices, the pursuit of social justice and realistic measures to prevent and reduce the economic and social costs of crime and justice require a more radical, longer-term approach than we have at present, if they are to be effective and sustainable. Indeed, we might go so far as to say that the challenges of supporting desistance compel and require criminal justice to engage fully and unreservedly with the challenges of building social justice and wellbeing”. Beth weaver “co- producing desistance: who works to support desistance”

EXPECTATIONS FROM CoBS(2) Trans-national exchange of best practice in cooperative and mutual community-based justice Potential for replication of best practice between project beneficiaries?

QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION OVER TO YOU! Jo Wilkinson Skype: jo.wilkinson2010