In2Out mentors young people leaving prison, supporting them to make a fresh start.
05/12/2025
It's that time of year again...
The time of year where gifts are lavished upon us.
The time of year where family and friends are around in abundance.
The time of year where we eat to excess.
The time of year when memories filled with love and laughter are made.
It is also the time of year when our Big Give Campaign goes live!
This is a chance to help us help those who won't be lavished with gifts this Christmas, who won't have friends and family around in abundance, who won't have enough food to even get through the week and for whom Christmas doesn't always hold positive memories filled with Love.
Any donation you give this week via the link below will be doubled , but if you donate at least £5 and quote the word 'Photo' as your middle name, you will be entered in to a prize draw to win one of two £150 photography vouchers for a studio near York.
A stay in prison gave Ricky the opportunity to learn a valuable life skill - how to ride a bike.
Ricky didn't know how to ride a bike... and then he did!
10/04/2025
We're hiring! Three fantastic opportunities at In2Out. Resettlement Manager - Midlands; Mentor Coordinator - Midlands, Mentor Coordinator - South and West Yorkshire. Find out more.
20/03/2025
Growing up in care has left Luke with gaps in his knowledge of a functioning domestic environment. For example, what's the difference between a fridge and a freezer? Find out more
Many of our young people have gaps in their knowledge, but how do you know what you don't know?
👨🦱the kids who have lost a parent whilst in custody and now don’t have that person to call when things go wrong. Or perhaps they never really had that person in the first place.
Whether it’s a mental health emergency or a broken washing machine. Our mentors are there and on hand to help with anything and can be available outside of normal office hours.
We know from bitter experience that there are ALWAYS more young people that need our help to start afresh and get their lives back on track after prison.
01/11/2024
🥱 Friday, the end of a long week, and I really didn’t feel like turning out to swim tonight but thanks to some encouragement from Fraser Coffey (thanks Wes) I went and surprised myself. Once I was in the pool, it wasn’t too hard to keep doing one more length.
Sometimes it’s the getting started that’s hard and having someone to encourage you and come along ‘with’ can make all the difference.
🏊🏻♀️ I was supposed to be practising my front crawl tonight, having never learnt the stroke growing up I thought it might help to be able to change between strokes on the day. 🏊🏻♀️
😱Which by the way is next Friday now!!!! 😱
So I naively went along to a swimming lesson, having watched others do it and a couple of YouTube videos, thinking I’d just pick it up.
😂🤦♀️
How wrong could I be! It was HARD, really HARD. Trying to breath at the right time and not inhale pool water and not drown and make a tit of myself in the middle of the pool. Oof!
The pressure got to me, and tonight I think I only tried around 6 lengths before reverting back to breaststroke, which is my default, in my comfort zone and feels familiar.
Trying something new and pushing yourself is a big deal and you feel quite vulnerable.
The kids we work with at In2Out may never have had experience of living life in a ‘normal’ way. Having a mentor can make the difference between them sticking with it and putting in the practice, overcoming failures along the way and them giving up and defaulting back to their previous behaviours and coping mechanisms that have got them by thus far.
Making changes to your lifestyle takes time and perseverance and we want to be able to walk alongside more young people to encourage them and help pick them up if they falter.
That’s why we’re swimming next Friday, hopefully the equivalent of the English Channel as a team to fundraise for the mentoring we are doing.
I shall probably be doing mostly breaststroke but I won’t give up completely on the front crawl. 😊
31/10/2024
Fundraising for In2Out isn't always easy. Not everyone thinks young offenders deserve help or a second chance, but I can hand on heart say that so many of them never really had a fair chance to begin with.
Many of them have had experiences that no child should ever have and they have been put in impossible situations.
Whatever you believe, it just makes sense to try to support these young people into work and help them set goals that will reduce the chance of them reoffending or hurting anyone else.
At In2Out we want to go beyond that though and help them to believe in themself too.
That is why we have taken on this challenge as a team to swim the length of the channel and raise money so we can support more of these young people who want the support to bring about change.
If you're able to donate even a couple of quid towards our target, I'd be super appreciative. 🙏💚
🤦♀️ I nearly fell into the deep end after my foot slipped on the steps getting in 👍
🤦♀️Then when I got out, I thought the suction on my goggles had given me 2 black eyes! they were literally purple! 👩🏼🎤
Thankfully that wore off. 😂
🏊🏻♀️🏊🏻♀️🏊🏻♀️
I went for a longer swim today to see how much I could keep going… I was pleasantly surprised that I managed
🌟2730m (weird amount as it was width swimming) but that’s equivalent to 109 lengths there about and that was in 90 mins.
So I just need to do that 2 or 3 more times on the day and I’ll feel like I’ve made a good contribution to the teams overall target. 😬
We’ll see….
I don’t like asking for money 💰 but actually it makes it so much easier when you know first hand that these donations are going to make a huge difference to a young person’s life which will then have an impact on society more generally and save the system money in the long run.
One of the young people I support sent me the most humbling message yesterday. It said
🙏🏼 I don’t know how to thank you, but I’m so glad you came into my life because you’ve made it so much better 🥹
I welled up, I really don’t feel like I’ve done all that much for them apart from just being there for her. It struck me that something so small can actually have such a big impact on someone.
It would be such an encouragement to see our target slowly growing as we’re training for the big day which is just over a fortnight away now. Even just a couple of quid would be SO appreciated. It’s sound mega cliche but it really is changing lives. 🫶🙏🏼❤️
15/10/2024
Plans are starting to come together for our In2Out team swimathon on Fri 8th Nov at Tadcaster Community Swimming Pool. Great mini meeting today with Kristie to iron out the finer details.
A few of the team and some willing helpers are going to attempt to swim the equivalent of the English Channel which is 21 miles or 1,360 lengths of the pool to raise funds towards our 10th anniversary total. If you are able to send even a small donation for the team, it would be massively appreciated.
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Nationally, there are around 850 15-18 year olds in custody at any time, 65% of whom will reoffend within 12 months of their release. With HMYOI Wetherby on their doorstep, Liz and Terry Wilcox were already volunteers within the chaplaincy team when they took on the challenge to find a way to support these young men to get their lives back on track as they left custody and at the same time reduce reoffending rates. In2Out was established in 2013, and since then more than 400 young men have been received mentoring and befriending support in custody and in the community, with more than 75% of those released before their 18th birthday staying out of prison for 12 months from release.
That’s a reoffending rate of less than 25% for participants of In2Out.
Now a staff team based at HMYOI Wetherby and mentors across the North of England carry on the work. With the support of a number of independent trusts, foundations, individuals and the prison itself we are able to introduce these young men to their mentors whilst they are completing their custodial sentence. Then, on release, the mentor can meet them at the gate, help them settle into their accommodation and crucially be around on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis to offer a listening ear, practical support and open positive questions to help the young person think about the consequences of their actions.
Wetherby HMYOI is a national prison and our young people return to areas right across country, but with the majority to areas across the north of England. Wetherby HMYOI also has the only complex needs unit within the juvenile estate - the Keppel unit - a national facility for some of the most vulnerable and complex young people in the prison system today.
Our regional mentor coordinators mentor young people returning to their area as well as managing volunteers in the region. We work closely with the prison and statutory services which enables us to advocate on behalf of our young people without duplicating services.
Ultimately we believe that change is possible for every one of these young people and we will be on hand to journey with them to see that become a reality in their lives.
