Shannon Trust transforms lives by helping more people experience the positive impact of learning.
We are a registered charity, and work across all prisons in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to train and inspire people in prison who can read and do numeracy to teach those who can’t.
Each year, we help thousands of people in prison to learn, so that they can build a different, more positive future for themselves and their families. We also work in partnership with organisations in the community to offer reading and numeracy support to those who are caught in the criminal justice system.
We provide everything needed for someone to learn, including our reading resource, Turning Pages, and our numeracy programme, Count Me In. Sessions are one to one, take place outside formal education, and learners work at their own pace.
Our programmes enable more people in prison to gain fundamental skills that they need to navigate daily life. It provides people in prison with access to education, training and rehabilitative courses that will help them to address their offending, gain new skills and move into employment.
For thousands of people in prison, and in the community, learning to read and understand basic numeracy can completely transform their life.
We believe in rehabilitation and know that for many, learning to read and understanding basic numeracy plays a key role. It has a transformative impact on the life of the individual and those around them, which in turn can lead to reduced reoffending and a better society.
We have made real progress in tackling low literacy and low numeracy, inside and outside of prisons. Our dedicated staff team and volunteers continue to develop our organisation and that is showing through the significant increase in the number of mentors we train, and the learners they support.
We are delivering on what we set out to do in our 2022 to 2024 organisational strategy and we are starting the see the real difference we are making. However, we recognise we still have so much more to do to make sure nobody is left out of learning.
It is with the support of our volunteers, staff and partners, supporters, donors and grant funders, that we can continue to reach thousands of learners and mentors year on year.
