Willmott Dixon has launched its first dryland academy for prisoners in the North of England.
The Hertfordshire-based contractor will teach inmates at HMP Lincoln plasterboard installation skills to help them find work on release.
It follows similar initiatives at HMP Elmley in Kent, HMP Cardiff in South Wales and HMP Belmarsh in London.
Groups of up to eight people will attend the Lincolnshire academy with the aim of gaining Construction Skills Certification Scheme cards to enable them to work on site.
Willmott Dixon director Nick Heath said the contractor “has a purpose beyond profit”.
“This includes providing opportunities and boosting social mobility in our communities,” he added. “With our presence in Lincolnshire growing, our new academy will help people leaving HMP Lincoln find long-term employment and reduce the likelihood of re-offending.”
Heath said the construction industry was facing a “chronic skills shortage”, adding: “Our academy equips ex-offenders with skills to find rewarding work when their sentence is over and increases the local talent of skilled construction workers.”
A prisoner at HMP Lincoln said: “The program gave me an insight into what I could do [when I’m released], and how it could lead to a job. It will help me to never be the same person I was before. My favorite part of the program has been creating something and looking back and knowing you did it.”
HMP Lincoln governor Matt Spencer said the scheme was a “great example of the quality vocational training that HMP Lincoln wants to provide its prisoners.
“With this vocational training, prisoners at HMP Lincoln have a much better chance of getting a job after release and this means they are less likely to re-offend.”
Willmott Dixon has received donations of money, time and tools for the initiative from supply chain partners including Advante, British Gypsum, Elmsmere, Nuneaton Signs, We Are Social Enterprise and Lincsco.
