The team behind the Difference Course worked with prison chaplains, and conducted trials in prisons, before offering the training to chaplains of all denominations. One inmate who tried the course said that it felt like the closest thing to rehabilitation that he had experienced in prison.

The sessions use film, Bible readings, discussions, prayers, and exercises to help inmates to heal relationships.

A chaplain who has run the course in prisons said: "For us, as hosts, it's very exciting when you see things start to click with people as the course goes on."

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Five youth prisoners at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison are working with boys from St John's College, Hastings, to complete Level 4 qualifications, and in doing so, have established a company.

For the last six months, the students from St John's have made regular visits to the Tirohanga Unit inside the Hawke's Bay Regional Prison meeting with their business partners, inmates aged between 17-19 years.

All students involved meet for lessons, with some further instruction work done via email in pursuit of credits for the New Zealand Institute of Management paper.

The Scheme requires students to form real businesses and sell real products and services to the market.

What resulted from the partnership is a company called BRUTHAS, through which the students work together to design, test, craft, market and sell 'Just Boards' - handcrafted bread boards.

The BRUTHAS is the brainchild of St John's College student Jake Dunn.

Dunn said he came across the appalling fact that 80 per cent of young offenders reoffend.

"So I thought what better way to enter into the enterprise project than to have a product which lowers that statistic and brings the values from our school into it."

The business venture is the first of its kind and has given a new perspective to the inmates on what their future could look like when they leave prison.

"I want to be a young entrepreneur. I'll probably be the first one from my whanau so yeah that's my ultimate goal," says one of the inmates who is part of BRUTHAS.

St John's College principal Paul Melloy is impressed with the joint project.

"I think the whole concept is outstanding - we're very proud that the two groups of students can work together like this on an equal basis," he says.

"A project like this ticks all our boxes - we're fortunate that we're able to do something like this, and the students involved are excited and proud too."

Sources

• St John's College
• New Zealand Herald
• Maori Television
• Young Enterprise
• Image: Young Enterprise

Mrs Tolley visited the Serco-managed Doncaster Prison in England last week. Serco will manage nearly a quarter of New Zealand's prison population by 2015 when it takes over a new 960-bed facility in Wiri. It began a six-year contract at Mt Eden Correctional Facility last year.

Prison reform campaigner Roger Brooking said he had been concerned about Serco's contracts in New Zealand but he was impressed by the culture change at Mt Eden prison, in particular the use of first names between staff and inmates.

The Doncaster facility's "Families First" scheme, encouraged ongoing relationships between prisoners and their children. The scheme was limited to 11 well-behaved fathers in the minimum-security jail.

"While we were there, there was a father who was bathing his 18-month-old daughter. She comes in once a week, and the two of them go through a normal parenting day. He has a day with his little one and he has done since she was born," Mrs Tolley said.

"It's to try and maintain those links, so they don't miss the development of that child, so the child gets the benefit of a dad."

Mrs Tolley said privately-run jails had the advantage of being able to trial new programmes without jumping through bureaucratic hoops. She also noted the absence of hostility between staff and inmates at Doncaster Prison.

Serco has introduced some of its initiatives at Mt Eden. It increased the number of visiting hours for inmates and attempted to make the visiting area as home-like as possible to facilitate family bonding and encourage rehabilitation.

The Doncaster prison was the first British jail to be paid according to its results - it only received full payment if it reduced reoffending by 5 per cent.

This was similar to the proposed contract for the Wiri prison, Mrs Tolley said.

"If they don't beat the results from the public sector by 10 per cent, there are financial penalties."

More: NZ Herald