Evaluation of Shine Women's Mentoring Service

Shine is a Public Social Partnership which provides a one-to-one mentoring service for women who are serving short-term prison sentences, on remand, or subject to Community Payback Orders and at a high risk of custody. The service is designed to empower women to identify and achieve their goals - and to engage with other services which can help them do that. The ultimate aim is to help reintegrate women who offend back into the community and reduce reoffending. The Scottish Government Reducing Reoffending Change Fund provided funding for the design and development of the service (in 2012) and for the running of the service from April 2013 to March 2017.

Evaluation objectives Shine commissioned Ipsos Scotland to evaluate: • levels of participation in the service • whether the activities in the service logic model had been undertaken as planned • whether mentors felt equipped to deliver the activities to a high standard • progress against short and medium term outcomes.

In addition, the evaluation explored ‘what is mentoring?’ and what might increase engagement.

Evaluation Methods The evaluation was based on: • quantitative data on outcomes • qualitative depth interviews with mentees; mentors; prison champions; and Criminal Justice Social Workers who were referrers/potential referrers to the service.

The fieldwork was conducted between July 2014 and January 2015.

Key findings Over the first 20 months, there has been an average of 727 referrals to Shine per year.

There is evidence that a considerable proportion of mentees made progress on short and medium term outcomes. This should contribute in the long term to reduced reoffending and increased integration.  Shine’s targets of 60% of those who engage with the service achieving improved motivation to change behaviour and 60% achieving increased engagement with other services have been met.

One of the main strengths of the service is that it is personalised and tailored to the needs and goals of the individual mentee. Because of this personalisation, activities vary considerably from case to case but the following qualities, skills and behaviours were key to building relationships and were consistently demonstrated by mentors: regular contact; being non-judgmental; being easy-going; being a relaxing, calming influence; listening; encouraging the mentee to set goals; encouraging mentees to think through consequences; praising and building self-esteem; challenging; being persistent; caring; encouraging engagement with other services.

The evaluation also identified a number of areas for improvement. These included better preparation of mentees for exit and, in some areas, better communication with local Criminal Justice Social Work teams. The Shine partnership is currently developing an improvement plan to address these issues.

The full report is available here.