A New Direction

A New Direction

Poverty, abuse and neglect during childhood are just a few life experiences that cause severe emotional damage in young people. Many turn to drugs and crime to escape the emotions that transpire such as anger, fear or guilt. “A New Direction” is a 6-month cognitive-behavioural treatment curriculum designed to bring about meaningful change in key areas of offender’s lives such as behaviour, self control and responsibility. The course helps incarcerated addicts identify the root cause of their emotions, break free from criminal and addictive thinking and return to the population with the skills and confidence they need to make a new start.

Our programme has received official accreditation from PSO4350 – an internal standard used by the prison service to assess program suitability and competence. More recently we have been very proud to receive approval from the Correctional Services Accreditation Panel (CSAP) – a wider inspectorate for interventions and more appropriate to a program with the scope of impact like ours. They have recommended we apply for official CSAP accreditation. Currently we are in the process of compiling and presenting our program to this panel with the positive expectation of being fully accredited within the next two years. CSAP accreditation will be a significant step towards achieving our long-term goal of receiving government funding and would also enable us to run the programme in more prisons.

Until recently, the Nehemiah Project was running this programme in a specially-dedicated unit at Wandsworth Prison for two years, and before that in HMP Brixton. Our programme has always continuously remained full. Uptake and integration by the prisoners has been very positive: motivated by our extremely competent team, men have, with determined resolve, engaged in what is an extremely challenging and tough programme.

As of summer 2011, HMP Kingston, in Portsmouth, is excited to be partnering with The Nehemiah Project.