From the Clinks Website ...
"Junction 42 is an established charity proving education, mentoring and Christian faith support to offenders both in custody and in the community. This support focuses on reducing social isolation, building community, addressing chaotic lifestyles and removing barriers to employment and family stability. We work with a large number of offenders, ex-offenders and other young people, (including dedicated women’s services) who face serious life style stability issues and significant barriers to employability"
Junction 42 has close links with "Connect" in Durham. Peter Grant of Fresh Expressions wrote recently of how a church has developed from long-standing work among young offenders.
"The ministry of Reflex, as part of Youth for Christ North East, ran for 15 or 16 years but changes in the prison system relating to young offenders brought changes in the ministry too. Such a lot of great work was being done but things had to develop in a different way to serve the needs of those coming out of prison so, just over 12 months ago, we set up our charity - The Junction 42 Foundation - to develop our work with ex-offenders, their families and friends in the community.
I've been working with men involved in issues of offending and domestic violence for over 20 years and what we started to see were real openings with the gospel in prison but it all broke down when the men were released and tried to get into the community through church. It just didn't work because the cultural difference was too great to make that step.
As a charity we started to run a couple of groups in the community, one for men and one for women. We also set up some mentoring training and got some people involved from local churches. The guys' group had around 10-12 people coming along; some were just out of prison while others were mature Christians, some with an offending background in their past.
... to read more of this exciting development, and how this project of hope is developing, go to the Fresh Expressions website here