Oasis Restore - Steve Chalke

I founded Oasis almost 40 years ago. Since then, we’ve grown to become one of the largest charities in the UK, working to provide housing, education, healthcare, youth, and family support, as well as countless other community-building initiatives around the country.

This work brings me face-to-face with a stark reality. Some of our most vulnerable young people find themselves caught in a persistent loop of behaviour that leads to exclusion and harm, which can come to define their future and life chances.

That is why I’m so proud and excited that Oasis Restore is going to be at the forefront of the long-awaited and much-needed reform of youth justice. It is a revolution.

Working with the Ministry of Justice, the NHS, and others, our secure school in Medway will offer therapeutic, integrated, and bespoke support for children, along with pathways for successful transition that equips them to contribute to a safer community.

Our staff will be teachers and youth workers, not uniformed prison officers. Our young people will be students, not inmates, and they will have bedrooms, not cells.

Each young person will receive the bespoke support and unique curriculum they need to tackle the trauma they have experienced, recognise the consequences of their actions, and begin a journey to turn their life around.

The big leaps forward in neuroscientific research over the last twenty-five years have revealed how traumatic early life experiences, adversity and exploitation have negatively affected the children who end up in secure custody. Their brains have adapted to the dysfunctional world they have been forced to endure.

Anyone who works directly with vulnerable young people, as Oasis does day after day, knows that their exposure to chronic insecurities such as family dysfunction and breakdown, maltreatment, abuse, violence, or neglect can often inhibit the ability to self-regulate their emotions and energy. For instance, a child with experience of domestic violence may well develop neural pathways which lead them to feel fear and find ways of deliberately hurting anyone who gets too close.

However, the gains we are making in understanding why some young people end up in secure custody are a huge opportunity to change the way the whole youth justice system works. That is why the Ministry of Justice proposed the first secure school, and it is why Oasis bid successfully, to open and run it.

When I began Oasis, I did so in the belief that absolutely every single person is uniquely valuable and should know what it means to matter and to be included. That principle runs through Oasis Restore. During their time with us, each child’s voice will be listened to and valued as opportunities are created for them to contribute within the school community.

Our aim is for young people to value their time at Restore, enjoy learning, and leave ready to contribute to society. Young people placed at the secure school are living with the consequences of their criminal behaviour: the sentence is their punishment. Our job as they come to trust us, is to understand, and to help them understand, the stories behind their actions, to support them to start making amends in whatever ways they can, and to work with them to build the skills they need for a different and positive future.

Our bespoke care plans will meet students’ needs, explore, and challenge harmful habitual behaviours, develop their strengths and aspirations, and reduce the risk of future harm.

We must break the cycle of poorly educated vulnerable young people leaving custody only to fall straight back into a vicious cycle of reoffending. By putting empathy and support at the heart of youth rehabilitation, we can make our streets and communities safer and cut the cost of crime.

When Oasis Restore opens in the coming months, for the first time ever we will have a secure school that prioritises care, education, and health as part of a child’s rehabilitation journey.

We can’t wait to get started. We hope you will join us for the revolution!