On a mission to create long term social change for prison leavers and youth at risk.
One of the biggest challenges facing prison leavers when they leave prison is finding employment. Official government statistics from 2018 found that approximately one in four prison leavers were working one year after leaving prison, proving that someone who has a criminal history often finds it difficult to find employment. This can negatively impact prison leavers looking to rebuild their lives.
However, statistics by the Ministry of Justice found that 82% of those that did find employment after leaving prison were still in employment 12 months later.
At the same time, the ever evolving technological landscape has led to a skills gap in the tech industry that is continuing to increase. Jobs in the industry are readily available and employers are always growing and evolving tech departments, be it in big global corporations or smaller independent companies.
Also, conventional academic achievements don’t apply to most coding job roles. Anyone who can display the right skill set, work experience and attitude can be placed into most entry level roles in the industry.
We’ve all had personal experiences of the positive impact upskilling in coding can have on prison leavers.
Both Michael and Josh successfully came through prison coding course Code4000, Europe’s only other in-prison coding project, with Michael going onto set up his own digital design agency Pink Umbrella Studios and Josh immediately starting a Software Developer role at Metro Bank after leaving prison. Meanwhile, Tariq is the former CEO of Code4000. He oversaw the delivery of the course in prisons and successfully deployed prison leavers into sustainable employment on release from prison.
That’s why the three of us have decided to launch CodeAtt, a London based not-for-profit company with the mission to create long-term social change by teaching life skills and industry specific coding skills to prison leavers and young people at risk of crime which in turn, leads to high level employment opportunities.
We want to re-envision the expectations and aspirations of prison leavers and young people at risk of offending, showing them that through hard work and commitment, they can carve out a sustainable career path despite having a criminal history.
Simultaneously, we want to re-educate employers in the banking and technology sectors, teaching them that prisoner rehabilitation is achievable and provide them with motivated employees that have gained the practical and personal skills required to thrive in the workplace.
The course is the first of its kind in the UK to offer the combination of coding and personal development teaching to prison leavers and at risk young people. It will also be the first time an organisation will offer any type of coding course to prison leavers and at risk young people in the UK.
It is focused on developing industry specific coding skills needed for employment in the tech industry and life skills, which will be taught by our partner organisation, Dale Carnegie London — global leaders in leadership training skills — to improve ex-prisoners sense of worth and confidence. It will provide our service users with the opportunity to create a coding portfolio, source commercial projects and manage projects of work while developing personal skills.
Upon completion of the course, we’ll help introduce our service users into the world of work by working with multiple partners in the technology and finance world. This will provide our graduates direct entry into sustainable employment, allowing them to kick-start their career in coding while also providing the technology industry with employees catered to entry level job roles. In addition, we’ll continue to support our graduates when they finish the course by helping to mentor, support and guide them as they begin to build their life and career.
Things are moving fast here at CodeAtt. CodeAtt Cloud our virtual hub is expected to be live later this year with full roll out at our first prison planned for the first half of 2021.
We’re passionate and serious about transforming the lives and perceptions of prison leavers and at risk young people through teaching and want the UK to see the impact that this can have on reoffending rates.
