Evaluations
Evaluation Report: Community Exchange project between detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre and young people at West London YMCA
The report explores the project’s impacts on participants’ wellbeing and resilience, awareness and understanding, and musical skills. Based on observations, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, it contains a wealth of detail about the creative process and the experience of participants. The report also looks at the project as an example of ... read on →
A Narrative-Based Evaluation of 'Changing Tunes' Music-Based Prisoner Reintegration Interventions
The report explains the results of exploratory research into the work of the prison based charity Changing Tunes, which uses music both within and also outside prison with offenders and ex offenders. Evidence revealed that the pro social impact on the participants came as a result both of participation in ... read on →
The Arts of Desistance: Evaluation of the Koestler Trust Arts Mentoring Programme for Former Prisoners
This report presents and discusses the findings of an evaluation of an arts-based mentoring scheme that is aimed at prolonging and enhancing desistance from crime through providing former prisoners with opportunities to continue engaging with the arts after release. The evaluation focused both on the implementation and effectiveness of the ... read on →
Write to be Heard: Supporting Offender Learning through Creative Writing
The report explores the impact of a creative writing programme developed to engage ‘hard to reach’ learners in prison. The mechanism was a creative writing competition, incorporating a schedule of workshops in 28 prisons, encouraging entrants to write pieces for broadcast on National Prison Radio (NPR). Using qualitative and quantitative ... read on →
Musical Pathways: an exploratory study of young people in the criminal justice system, engaged with a creative music programme
118 young people engaged in a participatory music programme across eight youth justice settings in England and Wales. The research objectives were to [1] investigate meanings and values young offenders attribute to music, their relationships with music, and its significance to their health, wellbeing, lifestyle and social status; [2] observe ... read on →
Sounding Out - Jim Cartwright
The report followed Music in Prisons as they ran a pilot ‘through the gate’ project which, through music, aimed to provide longer-term rehabilitative opportunities to previous project participants in order to help bridge the gap between life inside and out prison. The key aims were to assist reintegration; impact on ... read on →
Re-imagining futures: Exploring arts interventions and the process of desistance
Carried out by Northumbria University and Bath Spa University, this report highlights examples of how the arts can support positive changes linked to personal agency, efficacy and identity, which are linked to the highly individualised journey of desistance from criminal behaviour. Key findings show that participation in arts activities enables ... read on →
Family Man: 2012-13 Evaluation Scope
The purpose of this evaluation is to demonstrate the long-term impact and cost-effectiveness of Family Man to policy makers, funders, prisons and practitioners; and to complement Gwyneth Boswell’s qualitative study of the revised Family Man and other previous evaluations. read on →
Summer Arts Colleges 2011: Final Outcomes Report
An independent evaluation of the fifth consecutive year of the Summer Arts College programme (2011) has shown that the programme continued to meet its objectives of reducing offending, increasing educational engagement and improving basic skills through the arts for young people at risk of (re-)offending. Comparisons across the five years ... read on →
Talent 4....
Evaluation of an arts-based workshop programme aiming to increase participants awareness of their own innate talents and skills, this research project sought to measure the effects of participating in a Talent 4... project on offenders' self -belief in their capacity to gain employment, strengths and weaknesses, ability to work with ... read on →
Evaluation report: Music in Detention's work in the community and in Immigration Removal Centres
This report aims to assess the impact of MID’s Community Exchange programme, and the quality of the participatory music making involved in the case studies presented, as well as case studies and information presented in previous reports evaluating projects which took place between 1st April 2007 – 31st March 2010. ... read on →
Summer Arts College: Outcomes Report 2007-11
This outcomes report and accompanying digest is part of a series of publications summarising the outcomes of the four years of Summer Arts Colleges run between 2007-11. The evaluation has shown that the programme consistently meets its objectives of reducing offending, increasing educational engagement, improving basic skills,achieving a qualification and ... read on →