I spent the morning with Helen Milner from Uk –online at Hatfield Learning Centre. This learning centre is different from most, it’s associated with the Moorland Open Prison next door and has a remit to provide accessible learning opportunities for prison staff, their families and friends. It also provides leaning opportunities for local residents and noteably for the friends and families of in-mates, (more below)
They use a combination of the My guide content targeted at people who are new to the internet and internet services and courses and content from learndirect .
What really impressed me was how they have opened up the learning centres at the prison to the local community and significantly to the friends and family of prisoners.
Increasingly public services such as housing, jobs, social services etc are more easily accessed via the internet. Any scheme that can help offenders and their families gain access to these services once released must help in reducing re-offending, thought it would be good to collect evidence (anyone out there got some evidence on this?)
To my way of thinking this is really progressive, as budgets tighten more and more services will be delivered on line, ensuring that whole segments of the population are not disenfranchised from such services is a good piece of social glue
During our visit we heard that Becta have written a piece on this site and it can be found here
