Lives back on track

Skills to keep ex-offenders on track

A Yorkshire man has turned his life around after learning skills needed to work on the railways—while in prison. 32-year-old Mark Blackburn, from Skipton, completed the Trackwork programme at HMP Lindholme while serving 15 months for supplying drugs. Trackwork is a joint initiative between Yorkshire Forward, HMS Prison Service, Trackwork, City College Manchester, and the Learning & Skills Council.

One person's success encourage others'

Two days after leaving prison, Mark got a call offering him work with a rail company in Rugby the very next day. He now has a full-time job as a trackman. “The course has turned my life around; it gave me confidence and a career in the rail industry. I have been very fortunate that I have not been out of work since my release… I am much more financially stable and have a house and a car. My mother wrote to the prison governor to thank him and the partners for their support,” he says.

Mark began the 10-week programme in February 2007. After completing it, he started promoting it within the prison and became a ‘peer partner’ for the scheme, encouraging others to enrol and showing them how to use the tools.

The wider advantages of schemes like this

Yorkshire Forward is concerned with social inclusion—helping people from all sorts of backgrounds, including the disadvantaged and ex-offenders, to get into work. However, besides benefits at the individual level, such schemes also cut the long-term costs to the economy of repeat offending.