The Founder
“I set up Miss Macaroon in 2011 to bring together my passion for making the handed crafted delights that are French macaroons and providing supportive work placements for marginalised young people. Through a family member’s experience in the care system and chance encounters with a young homeless man in my home town I have always felt that I was extremely fortunate not to have been in a precarious situation myself. I dreamt of a business that combined my love of food, its power to create strong connections, a sense of community and nourish supportive relationships, throughout my time at school, university and abroad while setting up my first restaurant.
With help from amazing mentors, board members and University College Birmingham, where I did my catering training, I started producing our delicious French macaroons and ran a pilot training programme in 2011, out of which the Macaroons that Make A Difference programme emerged. To date we have worked with 17 of the most difficult to engage young people. I love making our beautiful product, quality control (taste) testing, and creating new flavours, but the thing that keeps me engaged after baking the 5000th macaroon of the day is seeing our newest member of staff practicing all of the skills he learnt on the first day he started the MacsMAD course. Initiative, time management, communication and team work are all improved by working in our kitchen. I’m really proud of the huge amount of hard work and commitment to learning and growing he has shown in working to get his apprenticeship and succeed in the Miss Macaroon kitchen, so much so that he is now called ‘Flash’! With the support from Barrow Cadbury we can now increase the number of training placements, work experiences, mentor support sessions, and paid employment opportunities we can provide for young people who have been involved with the criminal justice system, who have been in care or found themselves homeless.
The new board member
Rosie Ginday’s Miss Macaroon has it all; exquisite hand-made French macaroons and a great cause. So when I was invited to join the board of this CIC I jumped at the chance. I’m very happy to help a project which supports young adults by providing work experience and practical help to guide them into work or education. It’s an exciting company and the energy and enthusiasm oozing from Rosie is highly infectious. She is a fantastic role model, not only for the young adults the organisation helps, but all SME business leaders, including me. Each time I attend a board meeting or catch up with Rosie in between time, I inevitably reflect back on how I can improve my own business. The Board consists of a group of experienced SME leaders with a wealth of experience across all aspects of business and it’s always interesting to get their perspective. However the most rewarding aspect is knowing (hoping!) I can play a small part in improving the work and educational opportunities for some young people. This was brought home to the board recently when one young man who had been given a short term contract at Miss Macaroon came to speak to us about his experience. He was confident, happy and had certainly soaked up some of Rosie’s enthusiasm. It was a pleasure to meet him and confirmed for me the real value of this worthwhile organisation. I also get to eat some of the product; a perfect indulgence!
The newest full-time member of the team and beneficiary
My name is Zee and I’m 25 years old. I’m a trainee pastry chef doing an apprenticeship at Miss Macaroon. I work in the kitchen and prepare macaroons. I do a lot of the filling, packaging and baking. When I was in a hostel last January I came across a flyer advertising the MacsMAD course as an opportunity to learn new skills. I had been unemployed for four years so the course was a good opportunity to readjust to a working environment and meet new people. I saw the flyer and thought it was something worth engaging with so I applied to get involved in the MacsMAD course. I met Rosie who helped me as mentor and gave me an introduction in to the catering industry. I also gained my food hygiene qualification. My confidence grew throughout the process. I stayed in touch with Rosie who encouraged me to get some work experience.
I was offered the opportunity to get some experience one day a week and grow in the industry. After that I got offered a position. I then went on to do three days a week. It’s been a good transition I guess to start off on one day then three days, and finally on full time hours. There hasn’t been pressure – I’ve gradually been allowed to fit in. It’s been easier than just going straight in to full time work which would have been a bit more pressure if I hadn’t had the chance to develop the way I have. I was asked to speak at a board meeting in July and I didn’t know what to expect. I was a bit nervous but excited too. I definitely learned a different side of business and how this is a crucial part, how different minds and skills come together to improve the company. I felt privileged to be involved and it will be great to put on my CV. The opportunity was good for me to express myself about my experience at Miss Macaroon. It reassured me that I wasn’t judged. It was a good experience – definitely something positive to take forward in life. I learnt more about everyone’s roles and more about management.
Miss Macaroon has helped me to get a job in catering. It’s helped with skills, confidence, direction, focus and determination. It’s given me the opportunity to be part of something positive and constructive and to appreciate what skills are required in the work place. Rosie is a good motivator so my confidence has grown. Setting goals is now part of the way I work which I didn’t do before and that’s because of the five year plan we have put in place.
Find out more about Miss Macaroon on their website. Twitter: @IamMissMacaroon Facebook: MissMacaroonCIC
The high court did not need to do anything fancy to find that restricting books for prisoners is unlawful.
Nine months of campaigning by the Howard League, together with English PEN and numerous authors, culminated in a fine legal judgment last Friday. The case was brought by fearless public law lawyer, Sam Genen, with barristers Annabel Lee, Victoria Butler-Cole and Jenny Richards.
Mr Justice Collins was asked to rule on whether the restriction on books to prisoners was lawful. He was provided with a web of complex legal arguments based on human rights and the Equality Act 2010. In the end, he decided the restriction was unlawful quite simply because the policy’s effect was contrary to what the justice secretary said he intended.
Our law, built up case by case over time, says that a policy will be unlawful if its effect is contrary to the expressed intention and objectives that it was supposed to promote.
In the case of books for prisoners, the secretary of state and the deputy prime minister had said that there was no book ban. The deputy prime minister went so far as to say: “If there was a ban on sending books to prisoners, I would be the first to demonstrate outside the local prison. It would be ridiculous. It’s outrageous…..Education and training, reading and learning are a critical part of [rehabilitation].”
Yet a forensic examination by the high court found that the policy clearly resulted in a restriction in books, that access through the library services was not sufficient to make up for not having your own books, whether for reference, such as Brewer’s Dictionary or a compendium of a particular author’s works, to be dipped into frequently. The court adopted the desert island philosophy in finding that “possession…can matter as much as access”.
He therefore found the privileges policy unlawful to the extent that it banned books. This simple judgment is unimpeachable. It is not based on human rights or equality but on old-fashioned common sense. The government refused to reflect on the obvious truth that books are not a privilege and learning is central to its own ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda. It refused to accept the simple truth that the policy had the effect of banning books. It refused to change the policy of its own accord.
Instead, it took a fully contested judicial review at taxpayers’ expense, with the prisoner’s lawyers acting pro-bono, to enable a high court judge to unravel the spin from the reality of prisoners’ experiences and determine the justice secretary’s policy unlawful on the basis that it was quite simply the opposite of what he said he wanted.
No wonder then that the justice secretary is so keen to restrict the ability of individuals and public interest groups to speak truth to power through the courts. In the House of Commons last Monday, he revealed an astounding lack of knowledge of the way the law works, compounding his disregard for it in the case of books for prisoners. He accepted he was “baffled” by attempts by peers to preserve judicial discretion and sought to reverse them.
Peers have a final chance this Tuesday to defeat the government’s current attempts to restrict judicial review cases. Let’s hope they take it.
Laura Janes is acting legal director at the Howard League for Penal Reform. This blog was reproduced with kind permission of Howard League for Penal Reform.
From 2012 to July 2014, there have been 46 self-inflicted of young deaths of young adults aged 18-24. There have been nine so far this year (another is awaiting classification). In the past 10 years, more than 160 children and young people under the age of 24 have died in prison.
In February 2014, in response to ongoing pressure from INQUEST and other pressure groups, the Government announced it would hold an independent review into the deaths in prison of young people aged 18-24. This was a significant milestone for INQUEST, who first called for an inquiry into the deaths of children in November 2003, following the prison death of 16 year old Joseph Scholes.
Inquest’s and Prison Reform Trust’s report ‘Fatally Flawed: Has the state learned lessons from the deaths of children and young people in prison?’ found that a large number of young people who had died in custody had been diagnosed with ADHD, had special educational needs, personality, conduct and attachment disorders, as well as other vulnerabilities – some of which have been linked to self-harm and suicide. Staff training was frequently inadequate and they were ill-equipped to deal with these vulnerabilities.
The most crucial recommendation in the report was that the Government should hold an independent review into the deaths of children and young people aged 24 and under in prison, examining not just criminal justice issues but social and public health issues around the journey into custody. The current mechanisms in place to examine these deaths – the investigation and inquest systems – do not have the remit to tackle these crucial, broader, contextual questions.
The Government at first resisted this call, arguing that current systems were adequate. However, in March 2013 the parliamentary Justice Committee endorsed INQUEST’s concerns. The combination of parliamentary lobbying and legal challenge resulted in the government reconsidering its decision and in February 2014 the review was announced, with a deadline of midnight 18 July for submissions.
INQUEST was disappointed that children were excluded from the review and we will be ensuring their experiences are reflected in the analysis as much as possible. We are putting in a detailed submission based on our in depth casework and work with bereaved families as well as our policy and research work funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust. We are asking everyone who works with young people in conflict with the law to do so too. All contributions from organisations working with young people in and out of custody, can have an impact.
The shocking death toll of children and young people (140 self-inflicted deaths in the last ten years) means we need some fundamental rethinking to prevent the deaths of children and young people in prison but also to divert them out of the prison system altogether.
Find out more and submit your evidence before midnight 18 July.
The report includes a chapter on how to prevent young people from getting involved in a life of crime and outlines policy recommendations to ensure this. These recommendations include extending the remit of youth offending teams to those aged up to 20, in order to provide locally-led support to help keep young adult offenders out of prison and cut reoffending.
The report states that the responsibility for tackling youth offending lies locally, with youth offending teams (YOTs), which are organised at the level of top-tier local authorities. YOTs were established in 1998, and have since performed well against their three core objectives. The number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time fell by 67 per cent between 2002/03 and 2012/13. IPPR argue that instead of dealing with young adult offenders through the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ contracts, the next government should extend the successful YOT model to offenders aged 18–20. They suggest that managing this more effectively by reducing offending and reoffending, and ultimately bringing down the size of the prison population, would save money and free up capacity in the adult justice system.
Under the plans outlined in the report, the responsibilities of the YJB would be extended to 18–20-year-olds to ensure that local areas are focused on tackling criminality and antisocial behaviour among young people and young adults and new community sentences should also be put in place as an alternative to short prison sentences for young adults. In order to boost the financial incentives for local areas to reduce reoffending and keep young adults out of custody, over time, the budget for youth custody could be devolved to local areas. IPPR say this would give local areas resources to invest in alternatives to custody.
The plans set out in this report would mean local areas would be held responsible to account for their progress in reducing first-time contact with the criminal justice system, keeping all but the most serious young adult offenders out of prison, and attempting bringing down reoffending rates.
On 19 February in a small cafe run by former homeless people and ex prisoners in the East End of London, Criminal Justice Innovations recently launched a book and a support programme. The book is called StreetCraft – and it tells the true stories of dozens of amazing people who have gone against the grain and attempted to do something new within the criminal justice system. The support programme – StreetCraft Scholarships – will assist the next generation of people like those who contributed to the book, to make their innovative ideas for improving the lives of victims, making communities safer, and ‘resocialising’ offenders, a reality.
The book took many months to put together, not least because the innovation world is uncertain and the criminal justice world can move both very fast and painfully slow. Over the course of putting the book together we spoke to over thirty justice pioneers, twenty nine of whom were eventually featured in the book. Two of these worked on the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) pilot projects, demonstrating the importance of focusing on a young person’s maturity level rather than deciding whether to treat them as an adult or child based on some arbitrary age cut-off point. Their experiences, like of many others we spoke to, show how important it is to forge the right alliances early on and have early stage support when you are trying to improve aspects of criminal justice practice which your professional judgement tells you aren’t working all that well.
This is one of the reasons the Centre for Justice Innovation has launched the StreetCraft Scholarships, in partnership with the Young Foundation and Clinks. We believe that the brilliant people who opened up to us and the world, by participating in the book, are right. There is a wealth of innovative ideas and capacity for innovation in the criminal justice world. And there are many creative passionate people working in the sector, who want to make things better. But the gap lies at the very early stage, when an idea is first formed and it needs to be developed to prove that it can fly. Big criminal justice delivery agencies aren’t always so great at nurturing the innovations brought to the table by ‘StreetCrafters’, and even those which are don’t always have the right alliances to ensure the right reach, support and embedding in the community.
We are not claiming that the StreetCraft Scholarship will change all of that overnight. But we do hope to keep proving, as we did in the book, and as smart funders like the Barrow Cadbury Trust prove through high impact collaborative initiatives as the T2A Alliance, those who want to innovate in the sector, driven by their sense of social mission, are not alone. If you would like to read some truly engaging and sometimes moving stories of people trying to make the world a better place, you can download the book for free here. And if you know such a person and feel they may need a bit of support in taking their practice-led idea to the next level, please send them our way.
