Case Studies

Switchback supports 18-24 year-old young men, who have recently left prison and want to turn around their life for the better. Building on the skills they have developed in prison kitchens, Switchback links the young men (known as Trainees) in with a local café and sets them up with instant ‘on-the-job’ training. The goal is to help support Trainees to become more stable in all areas of their lives. Switchback Mentors work with each new referral for three months before their release from prison, and for as long as is necessary afterwards.

Underpinning all of the practical aspects to the service, and what makes Switchback so unique, is the ongoing support and mentoring offered. Regardless of what stage in the process the Trainees are at (in prison, in training or in employment) the Switchback Mentors will support them in developing the skills needed to move forward with their lives. Through combining a personalised, intensive mentoring relationship with a practical programme, Switchback Mentors make employment a realistic prospect for the Trainees, and through doing so make lasting change possible.

The importance of partnership working is key to the success of the service. The Switchback team work closely with local prisons to enable recruitment. They work with the Crisis Skylight Café (http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/cafe-london.html) to accommodate the training part of the service. And they continually develop links with local employers, so that the Trainees have the best possible chance of going on to secure employment. A particularly successful link has been with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s, River Cottage (http://www.rivercottage.net).

Switchback operates through three staff – a Director of Operations who also acts as a Switchback Mentor and has a caseload of Trainees, a Director of Development (fundraising and project management) and a Switchback Mentor.

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Switchback was founded by Alice Dawnay and Slaney Wright. Through past experiences of working on projects aimed at diverting young people away from crime, they both felt something was not working. The projects rarely appeared to have a lasting impact, and young people were ultimately reverting to criminal behaviour after these short term interventions had concluded. It was felt that what was needed was a more tailored, one-to-one service that would support a young person in all areas of their life.

The Switchback team work solely with 18-24 year-olds, and identify two reasons for this. Firstly, 18-24 year-olds are the group most likely to reoffend, and subsequently they incur the highest costs to re-imprison and keep in custody. And secondly, young adult offenders face significant and daunting challenges as they move towards adulthood within the criminal justice system, making the return to crime an even greater risk.

“With that age-group they are going through a transition from juvenile to adult within the criminal justice system. Also, a lot are going through the transition of being a child to being a father. They’re also going through transitions of living at home to not living at home. [There are] loads and loads of transitions... I think it’s particularly powerful to work with an age-group that’s in transition anyway.” (Switchback Mentor)

Switchback was set up through funding provided by a single, independent donor. The original grant allowed for four months of research and development activities, to assess what interest there was for the service and whether local prisons would be happy to work in partnership. Since that point, Switchback has built a diverse funding base of non-statutory donors (44 in 2009), ranging from individuals giving small monthly standing orders to a private company giving a single donation of £30,000. Over the past two years they have had 45% of income from grant-making trusts, 29% from companies and 26% from individuals. Switchback is managed by a board of trustees, who are working to a three-year Strategic Plan.

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In 2009, Switchback worked with 25 young men over the course of the year, 19 new Trainees and six continued on from the previous year.

Switchback works directly with local prisons and YOIs (Young Offending Institutions), most notably HMP Rochester. Referrals come from the prisons themselves, but Switchback have certain criteria that need to be met. The young men must be returning to the local area (i.e. north-east/ central London), they must have an interest in catering and they must have three months left on their sentence before release. The latter allows the Mentors to develop a relationship with them before they come back in to the community. Above all, Switchback Mentors look for young adults who want to make a complete change in their life.

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Where Switchback differs from other services is in the recognition that young adult offenders (18- me, that was a bit unsettling.” (Jermaine, 19) 24), like younger offenders (11-17), often need more time, support and guidance to help change their behaviour.Young adults are the highest risk group for reoffending, and Switchback realise that more intensive, holistic work is what is needed to really break the cycle. Some of the ways in which Switchback work innovatively with their Trainees are as follows:

Promoting education, employment and training:

Encouraging the Trainees into education and training and linking in with potential employers are key parts of the Switchback service. The practical side of the service allows the Trainees to experience what it is like to work in a professional kitchen. The one- to-one sessions encourage them to work on their CVs, look for employment opportunities and generally map out their future.

“[A] has put me in touch with someone who does part time catering jobs for students, which obviously will be particularly useful for me in [university] holidays.” (Tom, 19)

“We do job searches on the Internet. We see if any restaurants are like hiring. I’ll upload my CV to like six restaurants every Friday and see if they get back to me. I don’t think I would have done that on my own. That’s the thing, [Switchback] are keen on making me go further in my life.” (Tyler, 19)

Working flexibly to encourage engagement:

Underpinning the ethos of the Switchback service is the importance of flexible working. The young men are not always ready to engage with the service, and may need time to think through what they want and what they need. Switchback gives them the time and space to do that, and is always ready to help once those decisions have been made.

“I had one guy that I spent more than three months working with before release. I came and collected him when he was released and he came in the next day and had a nice lunch [but] never showed up again. Six months later I got a phone call from the prison saying we’ve got this guy back in custody who’s been sleeping in a car, he’s really depressed, he’s got all sorts of problems and he says he’s got no-one to ring in the world. The only people he could think of were you. For some of them, it’s not a matter of working with them and then they’re fixed. We do keep the door open.” (Switchback Mentor)

Accompanying to appointments:

Mentors may accompany the Trainees to other appointments they have. Though they are keen that Trainees take responsibility for sorting out their own lives, the Mentors also recognise that for young adults, sometimes this process requires additional support.

“It would be an easy option for me to push them towards somebody that could get them housing but I go through the processes with them. I think it’s very important that we sit in the housing office with them and they know that’s how you get housing. You can’t just wave a magic wand. If I do wave the magic wand, the next time that they become homeless they don’t know how to [get themselves housing]. We don’t take away from them any of the processes, they do it and I support them.” (Switchback Mentor)

“For my first proper meeting with my probation officer, my Switchback Mentor came with me. I didn’t really trust probation and I didn’t want to be going there on my own. I know it’s not true, but I felt that that they were against me. It’s just nice to have someone there with you that you know.” (Tom, 19)

Helping develop life skills:

Many of the young men come from backgrounds where they may not have benefitted from having a positive role model in their life, and subsequently may not have had the opportunity to learn key life skills. Helping develop these skills in the Trainees is therefore an important part of the service.

“[A] is helping me with court fines, make sure that they don’t get ahead of me. I don’t wanna have come out and then get arrested again straight away, so she’s helping me plan how I’m going to pay for them.” (Jermaine, 19)

Linking in with wider support networks:

The Switchback Mentors will also link in with other people in the Trainees’ lives, i.e. parents and families, offender managers and social workers. The model emulates that of youth offending services, where it is recognised that the most important thing is to work as a team and offer a comprehensive and unified support package to the young person.

“None of these guys are an island where nothing else touches them. Anything that they’re going to be contacting, any contact, on the outside, I try and [get involved]. I invite their mums in here before they’re released. I invite their probation, I invite their social workers in, to come and have a coffee, come and look round the building, meet me and understand better what we do.” (Switchback Mentor)

Closing cases when the young adult is ready:

The service also works with the Trainees to assess when they are ready to move on. This empowering approach allows the young men to have control over their own lives, and make the decisions they need to shape their own futures.

Helping develop maturity and responsibility:

And finally, embedded within the whole ethos of the Switchback service, is the importance of encouraging maturity and responsibility.This is felt key to both changing the offending cycle and also helping the young men make a successful transition to adulthood.

“Many have often been let off the hook too much, been mollycoddled too much, and actually this is the time when they are going to be in control, and they are the grown-up.” (Switchback Mentor)

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Since the service started in 2008, 15 young men have gone on to find stable employment, with three having now been in employment for over a year. Four have also gone on to start full-time study. In terms of reoffending, just 10% of the young men Switchback worked with in 2009 were reconvicted for further offences. This is a significant improvement on national figures.

Switchback has also been very positively received by others involved in the lives of young adult offenders, including parents, social services and offender managers.

“I got an email from a probation officer this morning who said it’s so great to see somebody come in to my office, who’s full of life and proud to tell me about their week. And we do get quite a lot of that. The guys are actually looking forward to their probation [meeting] as they have something to tell about all the good stuff they’re doing...” (Switchback Mentor)

What's next?

• Increasing the team, particularly recruiting more Switchback Mentors.
• Continuing to test the model to see whether the goals of getting young adults in to stable employment and ultimately reducing reoffending are being met in the long-term.
• Making sure that Switchback has enough independent funding to continue.
• And finally, developing the Switchback model in order to reach out to more Trainees in the most effective ways possible.

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