Ex Offenders
EX-OFFENDERS ARE WELCOME AT RHUBARB FARM
Rhubarb Farm has worked with ex-offenders since the very start of our operations. In the beginning, Derbyshire Probation Trust supported us by sending teams of people on Community Service Orders to clear the site, which was chest-high in brambles and weeds. Today Probation Teams from Worksop, Mansfield and Chesterfield come to work on site on a weekly basis. At any one time we have a number of volunteers who are paying off their Community Service Order hours and 3 Rhubarb Farm staff members originally started as volunteers paying off their hours through Probation.
From 2012 to 2016 Rhubarb Farm was commissioned by Leicestershire and Rutland Probation Trust to work with ex-offender, funded by the European Social Fund and NOMS (National Offender Management Service). We only lost this contract because the government re-organised the Probation Service, and put it in the hands of private companies.
From 2015 to 2016 Rhubarb Farm supported a group of prisoners on ROTL (Release On Temporary Licence) from HMP Hatfield, Doncaster. They drove to the Farm daily to work on site, returning to the prison in the evening.
Since 2012 Rhubarb Farm has been funded by the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner for services to ex-offenders. This funding now enables us to employ our Training Officer.