U-Casadh Project
Stephen Plunkett
Project Outreach Mentor
Mobile: 086 7908741
U-Casadh, a new project to help ex-prisoners re-integrate into society was launched in February 2009. The project offers practical support to Ex-Prisoners and helps them to get access to training, education and development programmes.
Stephen Plunkett is the Project Outreach Mentor and he works with ex-prisoners aged over 24 in Waterford. Currently Treo Portlairge supports ex-prisoners under this age group and there is a close association between the two projects. This is a green field project, seeking to re-integrate people into communities and providing direction and guidance for their hopes and aspirations.
Casadh translates "to turn" and the name is inspired by the desire of ex-offenders to examine their own behaviour and its impact on others and turn to a new beginning. This is an area of complex needs and challenges and the mentoring process involved has been proven to be very successful.
The agencies that are supporting this project are: Waterford Area Partnership Ltd, Probation Service, Treo Portlairge, Waterford Linkage Service, Department of Social & Family Affairs and Waterford Institute of Technology.