Welcome to Trail-Blazers

We were the very first charity to ‘blaze a trail’ and provide a mentoring service to young offenders in prison and ‘through the gate’ into the community upon release. We solely concentrate on what we set out to do in 1998 when our charity first started - mentoring young offenders. We have a unique product and we aim to offer this to as many young offenders as we can reach.

We are currently established in three Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) and expect to expand in to a further one this autumn and a fifth YOI in the spring of 2012. A staggering 78% of young people leaving such institutions re-offend within twelve months simply because they are trapped in a cycle of a re-offending. Through our committed and dedicated team of almost 100 volunteer mentors, Trail-Blazers works in close partnership with YOIs, prison staff and other stakeholders to reverse this trend and reduce the level of re-offending. Mentors work with young people up to six months prior to release and then up to a further nine months in the community, to aid successful resettlement through a programme of intensive mentoring along with support and signposting to specialist agencies. Of the young people we worked with last year, only 14% have re-offended which demonstrates the effectiveness of our mentoring programme.