New education contract for youth estate begins

Today, the new contracts for YOI establishments at HMYOI Wetherby and HMPYOI Cookham Wood have commenced, with Novus continuing to provide the education provision at both establishments following a tender process earlier this year.

Novus Managing Director, Peter Cox, 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 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.”

Novus 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. 

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 on release and tailoring our education offer to develop relationship with employers that increase the employment opportunities available. Giving young learners the practical and social skills they need to find a job, and businesses the confidence to employ ex-offenders, are an integral part of the Novus way of working, helping us to make a long-term difference to the lives and outcomes of our learners.

The bid specification meant that although we could bid for three establishments, the Ministry of Justice put a maximum award cap of two sites, so winning two is the best possible outcome that we could achieve, we are therefore preparing to hand over HMYOI Werrington to People Plus ahead of a go live day for them in December and we wish our colleagues and learners all the very best for the future.