In 2018 The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime commissioned Advance and The South London Alliance to support women centre provisions across London. The services put in place a whole system approach to supporting women involved in the criminal justice system, including 1:1 advocacy support, group workshops, peer mentoring and other specialist support. The South London Alliance and Advance Minerva services aim to improve the holistic support offer to women in London by improving partnerships across specialist voluntary and community sector (VCS) agencies, local borough networks and referral pathways.

What is the need?

An evaluation is required to evaluate the success of this initiative and create learning for future programs. The overarching aims of the qualitative research is to provide a detailed chronological insight into the life experiences and wider journey of female offenders prior to, during, and post receiving holistic tailored support; to provide further understanding of the response to their needs and experiences; and to provide greater understanding regarding the whole systems approach to female offending. The process, performance and impact evaluation will be overseen by the MOPAC Evidence and Insight Unit.

What are we doing?

Qualitative research including life history interviews with women accessing support from Advance Minerva and Women in Prison; service user workshops to understand how the system is experienced and understood by the women going through it and case note coding.

What will be the outcomes?

We will be producing an interim report at the end of the life history interviews and a final report at the end of the project.

What are the timescales?

May 2021 – June 2022