Outside Chance, a Company Limited By Guarantee and a Registered Charity, was formed on June 01, 1998 by Ian Ross, its Chief Executive
and the late Martyn Pope-Gilbert, its former Company Secretary. Ian, originally from a sales and marketing background, had become
Administration Manager of a charity which dealt with male adult offenders. Martyn had extensive experience of the voluntary
sector, had also been an employee of the charity and was looking for a new challenge.
In mid 1998, we decided to form our own charity
with nothing more than £25 and the belief that we could, with their own help, make an impact on the thought processes of the inmates
we were seeing as volunteers in pre-release workshops at HMPs Brixton, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs. Applications to a range
of grant-making trusts followed, one of which attracted the support of The Tudor Trust who continue to fund our work today.
We also secured the support of The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, our 'home' council, who also continue to support us today.
In
early 1999, we were approached by Harry Quinton, OBE, CEO of The Foundation Training Co Ltd, [FTC] who provide IT skills and resettlement
workshops in 10 prisons and YOIs across England as well as intensive post-release support in their Resource Centres in Hackney,
East London and Lambeth, West London [opening mid 2008]. They had heard of our work with adult inmates and invited us to pilot
our approach at HM YOI Feltham, Europe's largest young offender unit, with their 15-21 year old juvenile and young adult inmates.
This approach enabled us to reach inmates at a much younger stage in the hope that they might be steered away from considering
a continued 'Career In Crime?', the title of our prison-based workshops. In mid 1999, we were asked to increase the workshop
time from one hour to a full afternoon, in response to requests from the inmates who had been attending. In late 1999, we were
again asked to increase the workshop time to a full day, again in response to inmates' requests. Due to a change in the prison's
education regime in 2004, we voluntarily withdrew from Feltham.
In 2001, we developed into HMP and DC Rochester, the original 'Borstal',
where we continued to present under their P-ASRO programme - Prisons Addressing Substance-Related Offending - until February
2007 when their P-ASRO programme moved towards 'complementary and alternative therapies'.
We subsequently relocated from
Rochester to a new initiative at HM YOI Huntercombe where we currently present to 15-18 year old male inmates, a client
group previously lost to us when we withdrew from HM YOI Feltham. This provides us with the opportunity to intervene in
inmates' behaviour at a much young age. In 2003, we opened in HM YOI Norwich, another partnership development with
FTC. In early 2004, we opened in HM YOI Aylesbury, England's high security unit for long term young adult inmates. We
also developed into HM YOI Reading in early 2005 where we continue to present today to their 18-21 year old inmates.
On
August 26, 2008, we return to Feltham following our voluntary withdrawal from Aylesbury due to the prison management's unwillingness
to support any of our workshop costs. On August 27, 2008, we present our final workshop at Norwich due to our inability to secure
additional overheads support for this location. See 'Latest Company News' page for further details.
