 |
|
|
Whilst Hollywood normally portrays prison
work-life as involving mundane tasks such as laundry, the production
of car licence plates or sewing mail bags, the CDOC certainly
doesn’t fit the stereotype - it has an innovative programme that
encourages inmates to join its front-line IT help desk team!
Life Skills for Inmates
In 2005, with IT cut-backs on the horizon and 6,500 staff across 25
centres to support, the CDOC came up with a clever idea for
additional IT support resource: the introduction of a programme to
encourage female inmates from a local women's prison to work on the
agency's Numara FootPrints-powered IT help desk (see CDOC Numara
FootPrints case study).
For the group of women inmates from Colorado Women's Correctional
Facility in Canon City, part of the CDOC network, this programme
means they now have the opportunity to re-enter society with a
brighter future due to the IT and customer service skills they have
acquired.
The programme was designed to provide a mutually beneficial
environment in which the inmates could develop professional skills
while the staff received the additional IT support they desperately
needed. The idea was well received and a handful of interested
inmates were screened, interviewed and provided with training on
Numara FootPrints and 1st line problem resolution skills. For those
selected it was a fantastic vocational training opportunity and a
chance to gain a new set of skills that would be useful on the
‘outside’.
Overcoming the Obstacles
At the start of the programme there were a number of challenges to
overcome. The inmates came from extremely varied educational
backgrounds and some prisoners even struggled with basic skills such
as typing. A training plan tailored to each of the inmate’s needs
was a high priority.
End-user staff were also initially reluctant to contact the inmates
for help as there were privacy concerns about what information they
would be able to see – the CDOC’s use of Numara Asset Manager, an
automated IT asset discovery and management solution, meant that
detailed information about an end user's hardware and software
configuration might be available to support staff. This obstacle was
overcome by configuring the product’s flexible security features to
limit what information the inmates would be able to view.
Significant contribution to 1st line resolution rate
Since the programme was introduced, the women inmates have
contributed significantly to the success of the IT support centre:
of the 46,000 work orders raised in 2006, the inmates on duty
handled 16,000 and closed 8,000 – a 50% 1st line resolution rate.
The real success, however, has been the opportunity for these women
to work in a professional environment and gain self-confidence -
something they would otherwise struggle to acquire in a correctional
facility. |
|
|
|
