The Irish Prison Service (IPS) is set to spend an estimated €480,000 on providing a hairdressing skills workshop for inmates at the female Dóchas prison in Dublin over the next four years.
In a tender issued today, the IPS is aiming for the course to provide the trainees with the requisite skills and to develop their personal and job-seeking skills to enable them to obtain employment in hairdressing salons after their release from the Dóchas prison.
The modules to be provided by the course operator include salon support service, shampooing and conditioning; curling and finger waving; blow drying, setting and styling, colour processes and career planning and job seeking skills.
The mandatory requirements for the course operator are that the training must lead to a 'Certificate in Hairdressing' accredited to City and Guilds Entry Level/Level 1 or equivalent.
The tender documentation states that the contractor is expected to deliver four full-time courses of 10 weeks for each year of the contract.
Each course must consist of a maximum of seven attendees, and a minimum of 28 prisoners will require both theoretical and practical training each year of the contract.
The training class times are to be 9.30am to 12.30pm and 2.00pm to 4.30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and at least one day per week must include practical demonstrations.
The issuing of the tender comes against the background of continuing overcrowding for inmates at the female Dóchas centre on the Mountjoy prison campus.
IPS statistics for today show that there were 335 female prisoners in the system at Dóchas that also includes those on temporary release.
The Dóchas centre has 146 bed capacity showing that the prison is currently running at 149% of its bed capacity.
The tender states that the primary focus of training to be delivered is the identification and development of core skills required for the purposes of providing trainees with the confidence to develop their craft in hairdressing, technical, and professional skills.
The tender states that the IPS "places a strong emphasis on the provision of vocational training activities for prisoners and seeks to ensure that persons in custody have access to meaningful and constructive training".
The tender further states that "training activities are chosen to give opportunities to acquire skills which help secure employment on release and are an essential requirement in improving rehabilitation outcomes".
The tender points out that those wishing to tender to operate the course should have at least four years commercial hairdressing experience using a broad range of hairdressing skills.
The IPS is to provide all materials for the course.
The deadline for tenders is 16 April.
