Evaluation of the Use of the Good Loaf as an Out of Court Disposal Option for women who have offended: September 2021- August 2023

In 2019 the Northamptonshire Office for the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC) and The Good Loaf, which is a social enterprise that provides programmes and opportunities for women, secured funding from the Ministry of Justice via the Female Offender Strategy to implement an OOCD option specifically for women. From the start of the introduction of the OOCD Option to March 2021 an evaluation on the scheme was conducted by the Institute for Public Safety, Crime and Justice (IPSCJ) on behalf of the OPFCC and The Good Loaf. This study pointed to some positive benefits of the use of the Good Loaf as an OOCD, with most women showing a positive increase in their wellbeing, resilience and self-esteem and self-reporting that the experience had increased their confidence, enabled them to understand and regulate their emotions and behaviours better, improve relationships and skills. However, the evaluation was hampered to a degree because the use of The Good Loaf made a slow start and then was interrupted by Covid-19, which affected both numbers of women going through the programme but also the type of interventions The Good Loaf could offer women. Therefore, the OPFCC commissioned this further evaluation of the programme which ran from September 2021 to August 2023. This report looks at the data from this evaluation in relation to the data from the previous evaluation to provide a more robust understanding of the use of The Good Loaf as an OOCD, both from the perspective of an increased sample size but additionally evaluating it in a time where a ‘normal service’ has resumed.