Football / Bristol Rovers
Bristol Rovers and Bristol Prison join forces for new partnership
Bristol Rovers and the Bristol Rovers Community Trust have been ‘twinned’ with Bristol Prison to help tackle the high reoffending rate across the UK.
The partnership is part of a new nationwide scheme called the Twinning Project, which aims to bring together professional football clubs and prisons to use football as a catalyst for change.
The scheme hopes to provide real opportunities to better prepare prisoners for release, find employment and reduce reoffending.
is needed now More than ever
Currently in the UK, 63.8 per cent of adults reoffend in the first 12 months after release and lack of paid employment on release is the number one issue for reoffending.
Bristol Rovers are one of 32 football clubs including Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal who are part of the Twinning Project.
It will see them work with PE officers from the Prison Service to deliver coaching, stewarding, lifestyle skills and other employability-based qualifications to prisoners in order to help prepare them for release.
The qualifications hope to provide a route to paid employment which has been proven as a key factor in reducing reoffending and helping prisoners to rebuild their lives.
“We are delighted to have been selected to twin with HMP Bristol,” said Bristol Rovers Community Trust chief executive Adam Tutton.
He added: “The support and qualifications we are able to offer these offenders will help rebuild their lives and offer them routes into paid employment, as well as reducing the huge financial burden reoffending costs the UK taxpayer.”
Read more: Prisoners make mushrooms with coffee grounds
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