New Education Contract for Youth Estate Begins

New contracts for Young Offender Institution (YOI) establishments at HMYOI Wetherby and HMPYOI Cookham Wood have commenced, with Novus continuing to provide educational provisions at both establishments following a tender process earlier in 2022..

Peter Cox, Novus Managing Director, said: “Following a successful number of years providing education at HMYOI Wetherby and HMYOI Cookham Wood, we are delighted to continue our strong partnership with the Youth Custody Service (YCS), providing children with a world class education at both establishments.”

“At Novus, we firmly believe in the power of education to improve lives and we are passionate about what we do, creating the foundations for change, and I’m excited that we can continue to work collaboratively with HMPPS to focus on improving rehabilitative outcomes for these young learners.”

At Novus we have been delivering education in prisons for 30 years, working with her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and partner organisations to support men, women and children across the country to develop the skills they need to change their lives through learning. 

This contract is designed to continue to transform education in our YOIs, enabling new ways of working for everyone involved in the wellbeing of the children in the establishments. It will include core literacy and numeracy teaching, but will also include vocational subjects and personal, health, social and economic education (PHSEE) to support rehabilitation and to give our learners the skills they need on release to change their lives and become valuable members of society.

Part of Novus’ offer is our career advice service, supporting our young learners in a nurturing way to understand their career options upon release and tailoring our education offerings to develop relationship with employers and increase the employment opportunities available to them.

Giving young learners the practical and social skills they need to find a job and encouraging businesses the confidence to employ ex-offenders, is an integral part of the Novus core values, helping us to make long-term differences in the lives and outcomes of our learners.

The bid specification meant that although we could bid for three establishments, the Ministry of Justice enacted a maximum award cap of two sites. As such, winning two establishments is the best possible outcome that we could have achieve.

We therefore are preparing to hand over provisions for HMYOI Werrington to People Plus ahead of a go-live day in December 2022. We wish our colleagues and learners all the very best for the future.