Cornerstone manager offered place on prestigious scheme

The community justice services manager at Scottish social care charity, Cornerstone, has been selected from 1000 applicants to take up a place on the prestigious Winston Churchill Memorial Trust placement scheme.

The initiative offers travelling fellowship to UK citizens to travel overseas and bring back knowledge and best practice for the benefit of others in their professions and communities.

Lynn Jolly, who is based in Cornerstone’s Glasgow office, will spend six weeks this Autumn visiting the John Howard Society of Canada and Home Boy Industries of California, which provide support services for ex-offenders with learning support needs.

She was selected from a large pool of applicants because of her work helping to launch a pioneering scheme aimed at identifying offenders with learning support needs and helping them to reintegrate into society after being released from prison.

The Positive Tracks project, which forms part of Cornerstone’s Community Justice Service, is initially working with three prisons – HMP Barlinnie, Greenock and Cornton Vale – to provide accommodation, life skills and employability support to prisoners identified as having a learning need and who are being released from short term (up to 4 year) custodial sentences.

Positive Tracks will be replicated in the North-east of Scotland next year, with a comparable staff team appointed to deliver the same support to prisoners in the Aberdeen area.

Lynn was delighted to have been given the opportunity to travel to California and Toronto, speaking with fellow social care professional and looking at ways to improve the service which Cornerstone offers.

She said: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend time with people who have learning support needs in the community justice system of Canada and America and demonstrates some important learning opportunities for those of us developing such services in the UK.

“I very much look forward to spending time with colleagues in these services learning about their best practice, and sharing that with staff and partnership organisations when I come back to Scotland.”

Edel Harris, Cornerstone’s Chief Executive, added: “I am delighted for Lynn that she has been afforded this incredible opportunity.  Cornerstone and the people we support will benefit hugely from her experience and we are very proud of the fact that one of Cornerstone’s employees has been selected following a hugely competitive process”

In other Cornerstone news, the charity has been shortlisted in the prestigious 2013 Grampian Awards for Business Excellence.

Cornerstone, which provides support to nearly 800 people in the North-east, has been named as one of three finalists in the Alick Buchanan-Smith Enterprising Communities Award category.

This award recognises organisations which operate for the benefit of their community and can demonstrate that they are rooted in their community and go the extra mile to bring genuine value to their local area through engagement and support.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner at Aberdeen’s Ardoe House Hotel on Thursday 27 June.