Women's Wisdom

A - DESCRIPTION OF THE GOOD PRACTICE

A1 - Title in original language
Women's Wisdom

A2 - Title in English
Women's Wisdom

A3 - Location of GP (national)
UK

A4 - Location of GP (regional)
Hampshire

A5 - Economic field of activity
Q Human health and social work activities

A6 - Ultimate purpose of GP
To improve social cohesion/inclusion
To address legal or financial exclusion
To create or conserve employment

A7 - Spatial scale
Regional (large scale)

A8a - Start date
June 2004

A8b - Anticipated end date (if applicable)
Ongoing

A9 - Short description of the GP
A holistic range of wrap around support concentrating on those furthest away from mainstream provision, enabling them to progress - ultimately to gain employment or self-employment.

A10 - Key words relating to the GP
Innovation
Social inclusion
Work inclusion / employment
Training / mentoring
Entrepreneurship

A11 - Objectives of the GP
To provide wrap around support for rehabilitation of offenders in prison, through the prison gate, and in the community. To increase the opportuinites for people to progress into work and self employment. Working with people to ensure healthy and flourishing family lives.

A12 - Activities that have taken place
Coaching, training, work experience, employer enagagement, mentoring, self employment support, peer group learning, volunteering.

A13 - Achievements of the GP
Won ESF Leader Award and Gender Equality Awared in 2011. Big Venture Challenge winner 2013/14. In addtion, Women's Wisdom has demonstrated aspiratrion and growth as a social enterprise, going from nothing to large scale contracts, eg Serco. Women's Wisdom has the capacity and aspiration to take on large scale contracts.

B - IMPACT ON SOCIETY AND ECONOMY

B1 - How has the GP impacted on the following?

B1a - Legal/financial exclusion (people who legally or finacially excluded)
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Offender work - progressing over 50 % of cohort that work with Women's Wisdom into employment or self employmnet. 98% of cohort say they have been able to progress - this demonstrates impact Women's Wisdom has had.

B1b - Creation or conservation of local employment
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Women's Wisdom has developed ARC (Administration Resource Centre), an innovative community payback initiative supporting female offenders, providing admistration support to businesses.
ARC centres are in Southampton, Worthing, London and a prison in Yorkshire - the centres gets people working with local employers. Large employer engagement programmes. Working with local businesses to support them - helping businesses to grow and create their own jobs.

B1c - Adaptation to new realities (enabling people to adapt to their changing circumtances)
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Wome's Wisdom is all about working with and enabling people to work with, and deal with, change in their lives.

B1d - Cross sectoral working
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Women's Wisdom works all across all sectors, ensuring non-duplication of work.

B1e - Enablement of social enterpreneurship
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
In West Sussex - supported over 100 social enterprises to set up and develop. Accredited centre of excellence for enterpise.

B1f - Amenities for local people
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
ARC - offers a variety of services to local people.

B1g - Educational opportunities
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Women's Wisdom offers adult and community learning, including employability, personal skills, enterprise skills (incl social enterprise).

B1h - Crisis response
Very positive impacts
Any other comments?
Programmes around domestic violence, anger management and alcohol related issues. Work around 9 offending pathways. Signposting to other organisations.

B1i - Local financial environment for social enterpreneurs
Positive impacts
Any other comments?
ARCs are grant giving - percentage given back to social enterprise.

B1j - Local policy environment for social enterpreneurs
Any other comments?
Not applicable

B1k - National financial environment for social enterpreneurs
Any other comments?
Not applicable

B1l - National policy environment for social enterpreneurs
Any other comments?
Not applicable

C - PARTNERSHIPS & GOVERNANCE

C1 - Is the governance of this GP fully inclusive?
Beneficiaries are highly involved in governance
Comments and learning points
Service users support design of all aspects of work and sit on steering groups, etc. They help define the shape of Women's Wisdom.

C2 - How influential has this GP been on local or national decision makers? (Have you had and influence on decision makers locally?)
High degree of influence achieved
Comments and learning points
Women's Wisdom provide a consistent and persistent approach to gender focused provision. They are pioneers and advocates for specialist provision for women.

C3 - How much partnership work has been involved?
A great deal of cross sectoral partnership working
Comments and learning points
All the time. Heath, probation, police, doctors and private sector.

D - PR & TRANSFERABILITY

D1 - Please describe how the GP communicated its experience and success to the public (how you disseminate your impact)
Average - part of Women's Wisdom's focus for the future is to look at marketing and celebrating their work.

D2 - Please describe how the GP communicated with local or national decision makers?
Juliette goes out and influences at strategic levels, including government - around the rehabilitation agenda. Juliette also sits on the board of a Local Economic Partnership where she helps influence the social enterprise agenda and enterpise as a way to engage with vulnerable adults. She helps bring social enterprise into the mainstream.

D3 - Are there any elements of this project that you think would transfer particularly well to other contexts?
Very scaleable - the core factors - coaching, mentoring and training - can be delivered anywhere.

E - RESOURCES AND SUSTAINABILITY

E1a - Total annual income of GP 2011/12
£524.000,00

E1b - How is this made up?
70% grants

E1c - Details of human resources
2 directors, 2 regional leads, 2 area supervisors, 8 coaches, 15 volunteers

E1d - Details of technology
Women's Wisdom has invested in a variety of laptops, mobile technologies and tablets. £1,000.00 per year is spent on cloud based data storage.

E1e - Details of financial investment for start-up/early stage
Through grants from Business Link and a 3 year contract with the LSC. The contract was worth 97% of the initial start up.

E1f - Details of external support

E2 - If public funding were withdrawn, could the GP continue to exist?
Yes. Whole purpose of ARC is for sustainbability.

F - EXECUTIVE BODY AND CONTACT INFORMATION

F1 - Who set up the GP?
Individual or group of individuals

F2 - Who runs the GP?
Individual or group of individuals

F3 - Short description/comments
Women's Wisdom is a company limited by guarantee. In process of gaining chariable status.

F4 - Contact
Juliette Green
Women's Wisdom
33, Queen's Terrace, Southampton, Hampshire, SO14 3BQ
UK
Telephone 0800 7818597
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.womenswisdom.co.uk