Campaign for better mentoring of young prisoners

The initiative follows research from The Prince's Trust, which found 65 per cent of young offenders believe mentoring could stop them reoffending.

The coalition, which includes The Prince's Trust, Clinks and St Giles Trust, is now bidding for around £43,000 from the Innovation Exchange to improve mentoring services for 16- to 25-year-olds in custody. The cash will be used to create a "mentoring map" of services across the UK and to complete studies examining the impact of better youth mentoring.

Ginny Lunn, head of policy and development at The Prince's Trust, said mentoring of young offenders would help cut reoffending. "There's a real gap in the support young people get," she said. "We need to prove to government what it will cost but we need to do more work to analyse it. We want to be able to say: 'If we can get half the money from the private sector can the government match it?'"

She said the work will help young people in custody. "Over the next couple of years we need to build up real evidence to show mentoring works well," she said. "We also need to respond to the loud cries of young people that mentoring is what they need. With reoffending rates so high it's really important that we listen."

The Prince's Trust's research appears in the joint report Making the Case for One-to-One Support for Young Offenders, which is published today (10 September) by the coalition.

It includes a pledge for all young prisoners between 16 and 25 to be offered one-to- one support before and after release. The pledge has already been signed by more than 30 individuals and organisations including Clinks, the St Giles Trust, the Prisoners' Education Trust, Rainer, the Samaritans and Shelter.

This month The Prince's Trust will extend a prison-mentoring project from the south-west to the south-east of England, with plans to establish the project in Northern Ireland by next year.

- www.cypnow.co.uk/doc.