Using creativity to offer a brighter future It's a vicious circle. A lack of skills needed for employment leads to offending and a custodial sentence. Then a criminal record leads to yet poorer employment prospects and continued re-offending. This tragic cycle is often made yet more difficult to break by the fact that many offenders' complicated backgrounds mean they respond poorly to traditional, academic methods of learning. It is, however, an area where creative-based approaches are being

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... reasingly recognised for their ability to engage offenders, improve interpersonal skills, increase self esteem and broadly generate positive results. The PEETA Project and the SEPE award Over the course of two years several prisons in Europe participated in the PEETA Project. Prisoners took part in arts projects that were structured around the strengthening of soft skills: Personal Effectiveness and Employability skills Through the Arts. After succesfull completion, the participants were rewarded with a SEPE certificate, an award to Support Employability and Personal Effectiveness such as good communication, a pro-active work attitude and the ability to self reflect. This is specifically designed to help people from a variety of backgrounds gain recognition for the skills they have developed. For many participants, it was the first qualification they earned and a benchmark for both themselves and others in their determination to change their circumstances. The SEPE certificate is issued by Pearson and acknowledged within the European Qualification Framework. The images show the theatre play titled 'Rob in da Hood', that the Dutch PEETA team delivered in 2012 in the prison in Krimpen aan den IJssel in the Netherlands.