RISE is an innovative staff-led mutual that designs and delivers behavioural change programmes and new approaches. Our work can be used in the criminal justice system and community to transform the lives of individuals, families and communities.

What We Do

In order to create safe communities, RISE empowers people to break their cycle of harmful behaviour and develop better relationships with their families and society. A large part of this is through our work in tackling domestic violence and abuse.

RISE’s interventions challenge attitudes and facilitate long-lasting behaviour change. They are driven by the belief that anyone can make better decisions, given the right support. Our experienced team of professionals work with perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse to guide them through a process of change, which addresses their behaviours and attitudes. Through a combination of group work and one-to-one sessions, our programmes aim to prevent reoffending. They are focused on self-reflection and creating tangible outcomes that can help perpetrators to build a pathway for change.

Our family-centred approach to tackling domestic violence means that, in addition to facilitating change in the behaviour of perpetrators, we also provide a safety support service for victims of domestic violence and abuse.

RISE recognises the need to work in a systemic approach when tackling serious issues that impact families and communities, to achieve sustainable change. This is why we have developed ‘whole systems’ approaches to working in prisons, schools, and with families impacted by domestic abuse. This includes educating and consulting with professionals, service users and their families.

Our Mission

To provide innovative solutions to transform lives
To work with partner organisations that complement our capabilities and share our belief that people can change.
To develop tailored interventions for specific groups of people including victims, perpetrators and troubled families.
To adopt an evidence-led approach to developing our services by working with academic institutions both national and internationally.

Our Values

We are guided by a strong set of values:

People We value the contribution of every member of staff whose commitment and skills are dedicated to achieving the best outcomes for service users, victims and the community.	Change We believe that, given the right support, people can make positive changes to their lives.
Innovation We are committed to developing new, relevant products, services and ways of working.	Diversity We respect individual differences and are committed to maintaining a team that reflects social diversity.
Excellence We strive to be a learning organisation, embedding continuous improvement in everything we do.	Evidence-led We place research at the heart of everything we do – whether it be commissioning independent research or using existing intelligence – to discover new ways of working.
Collaboration We work with partner organisations and seek feedback from the people who use us in order to develop our services.	Social impact We are a Community Interest Company that will invest in the community.

Our Background in Criminal Justice

RISE was formed as a result of the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme, enabling staff within the Interventions Department of London Probation to establish a staff-led mutual. We secured and delivered a three-year contract with the London CRC and MTCnovo, to provide rehabilitation and offender management services across London. This provided a strong foundation to use our expertise to branch out into working with a number of London Local Authorities and prisons, delivering programmes tailored to complex local needs.

Meet the Team

Find out about our Board of Directors and non-executive directors below, and their diverse areas of expertise that help to shape RISE.

Kuljit Sandhu is the Director’s Safeguarding lead. If you wish to contact us, email on boardofdirectors@risemutual.org

RISE Board of Directors

Kuljit is the CEO of RISE Mutual CIC. She was integral in developing the Company before its spin-out from the London Probation Trust, a statutory criminal justice agency. She has always maintained a belief that people, with right support, can make positive changes in their lives, and she was drawn to the probation service. She worked as a Probation Officer in Lambeth in the mid-1990’s and also took the opportunity to initiate a number of projects, one of which looked at the delivery of cognitive behavioural theory-based programmes. When this approach was fully adopted in London, Kuljit moved to more strategic and executive leadership positions, specialising in domestic abuse, diversity and equality issues, mentoring services and group work interventions aimed at reducing reoffending.
As the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation reform programme moved towards the establishment of diverse delivery of offender services, Kuljit became inspired to seize the opportunities this brought about to further develop the effectiveness of probation-based education and, as a result, formed RISE Mutual, a Community Interest Company. RISE won a substantial contract to deliver interventions on behalf of the London Community Rehabilitation Company, and overnight became the largest provider of offender programmes in Europe. Kuljit is building a brave and innovative organisation, passionate about developing and delivering new approaches to assist racialised and disadvantaged people with complex, human problems.
Follow Kuljit on twitter at: @kuljitsandhu16

After developing her early career in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, Clare began working for London Probation Trust (LPT).
As a senior manager in the Business Development Unit, Clare gained extensive experience of new business development, contract and project management and supply chain development. She worked with partners across the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise sectors to establish a consortium to reduce re-offending.
In 2012, Clare became the Performance Improvement Manager for the Interventions Department of the LPT where she had responsibility for overseeing the performance of Domestic Abuse and Sex Offender programme teams. She developed and implemented strategies aimed at delivering excellence and oversaw the strategic direction of income generating commercial projects.
Clare is a professional life and business coach as well as a Neuro Linguistic Programme practitioner.

Professor John Beckford PhD MMS FCybS FRSA FIET is Rise Mutual CIC Board Chair. John has spent more than 30 years working with Directors and senior managers to help them diagnose the business problems that they face and identify ways to improve their own performance.
John is a partner in Beckford Consulting, Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering at University College London and in the Centre for Information Management at Loughborough University and a Non-Executive Director of both Fusion21 Limited and Corehaus Limited (both social enterprises). He holds a PhD in Management Systems and Sciences from The University of Hull, is a Fellow of the Cybernetics Society, a Member of The Institute of Management Services, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology.
John is author of The Intelligent Organisation (2nd ed. Routledge, 2020) and The Intelligent Nation (Routledge, 2021) and Quality Management (Routledge, 5th Edition, 2023) and numerous papers and articles. Consulting activities cover manufacturing and services in public, private and third-sector organisations.

Andy Champness’ day job is as a consultant specialising in governance and leadership. He is currently the interim Chief Executive of the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner. He recently worked as the Chief Executive of the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner and has substantial experience in the Criminal Justice sector.
Andy specialises in transforming organisations and achieving through effective inter-agency working. He has helped establish ground-breaking initiatives with third and public-sector providers in relation to areas of work as diverse as road safety, offender rehabilitation and victim support. Within policing, he has enabled police forces to work together in ever more complex environments to maintain and improve their performance with significantly reducing resources. He has extensive experience in collaborative working between public sector agencies. He also has considerable experience in developing and delivering training to specialists and to those with decision-making and governance responsibilities. Andy is married with three children.
Andy is a Barrister, Chartered Manager and Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.

Elaine spent the last 24 years working in the criminal justice system, starting her career in early 2000 where she worked in a prison delivering accredited behaviour change programmes. Elaine has since worked in the probation service in Devon & Cornwall and in London as well as in prisons delivering a variety of accredited and non-accredited programmes and therapeutic group interventions.
Elaine has worked for RISE since it’s formation in 2015, delivering and developing early interventions. Elaine is the team leader for the criminal justice pillar and oversees the out of court resolution team and contracts delivered in partnership with police forces nationally.
Elaine believes strongly in fairness and embracing peoples individualism, diverse needs, experiences and identity. Elaine also believes everybody should have the opportunity and support to make positive changes in their lives.
Elaine is passionate not only about supporting the needs of the service users we work with but also, the needs of all RISE employees. Elaine wants to contribute to RISE’S aim of creating a safe and supportive working environment where everyone is seen as the individuals they are and are ‘seen’ ‘heard’ and valued for the unique view and experiences they bring.
Elaine sees her Role as chair of the employee council as a positive way she can be involved and help us achieve this.

Anissa Pieterse has spent her 23 year working career (to date) building experience as a Tax Consultant, first qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, whilst working in the tax department of Arthur Andersen/Deloitte, and now in-house for an infrastructure investment company.
Anissa brings a wealth of financial expertise and experience of working across sectors and differing business areas. She has also advised on financial strategies and implications as companies have entered different stages of growth.
As a mum to three school age children, Anissa has developed extraordinary organisational capabilities and these allow her to continue with voluntary roles in local schools and sporting organisations outside of her, now part-time, work responsibilities.

RISE Mutual CIC Director

Odile Slynn, Lady Slynn of Hadley is a French-born British humanitarian, philanthropist and peeress, involved in several organisations advocating children’s rights and wildlife preservation. She is the founder and chairman of the British branch of Child In Need India (CINI) and former chairman of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA). She is the widow of Gordon Slynn, Baron Slynn of Hadley.
Born in Paris, she moved to London in 1959, where she trained as a nurse at Hammersmith Hospital. She taught French at the University of Buckingham from 1980 until 2000.
She has been a member of the Board of Visitors for HMP Grendon / Springhill; a member of the Parole Board (1988–1992) and chairman of its Awarding Committee from 1999. She has been Honorary Secretary to the British Moroccan Society since 1985.

Who We Work With

Intrinsic to all of our work are our Service Users and our wider Stakeholders.

Everything we do is with the Service User, their families and wider communities in mind, we therefore ensure that we work closely with them via our Service User Council to ensure that we meet their needs and work towards outcomes which secure the most safety and benefit to them and their families.

Service User Council

RISE involves Service Users within the Service User Council in a collaborative process in order to improve our delivery of services. Service User Involvement can have a positive impact on individuals who take part by boosting self esteem, confidence and skills, which can assist in terms of future employment and training. The Service User Council offers Service Users a voice, enhancing understanding of services and how they work, providing opportunities for learning, training and development, making people feel valued and respected and furthering the goal of recovery through inclusion and developing life skills.

Stakeholders

RISE are committed to providing a holistic and well-rounded service by working closely and collaboratively with a variety of different stakeholders in a multi-agency environment to support both perpetrators and victims of domestic violence and abuse.

We deliver services for:

Local Authorities – we have secured a few contracts with local authorities in London, where we deliver domestic abuse services to perpetrators, victims and families.
CAFCASS – we deliver Domestic Violence Prevention Programmes (DVPP) as part of private law child contact cases.
Prisons e.g HMP Highdown and HMP Coldingley – We have cemented our role as one of the organisation’s delivering transformational reform in the prison service, and will use our early successes to build on our reputation as a provider of behavioural change and wellbeing services.

We work in collaboration or partnership with the following organisations who share our values, and with whom together we can provide a greater impact and service to communities:

Victim Support
P3

If you are interested in working with us, please contact us.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

RISE are committed to promoting equality and diversity across the organisation and to our service users who are individuals from all walks of life. We respect the broad diversity and uniqueness of individuals and our vision is to ensure equality and inclusivity for all, in every aspect of the service we offer, and in our role as a Mutual employer.

Awards and Recognition

RISE’s work towards rebuilding lives and stronger communities has been recognised in many ways in the last few years.

Our Facilitators Elaine and Molly wrote an essay which was published in a new book titled ‘Life Beyond Crime: What do those at risk of offending, prisoners and ex-offenders need to learn?’ by Lemos and Crane.
Life Beyond Crime brings together in an insightful and passionate debate, through prose, poems and pictures the assembled first-hand experience and wisdom of more than 60 contributors responding to the question What do those at risk of offending, prisoners and ex-offenders need to learn?
Other contributors include current and former prisoners including the work of artists and poets who have been recognised by Koestler awards; criminal justice practitioners; educators and academics; as well writers from the voluntary and arts worlds including theatre director Phyllida Lloyd, lyricist Sir Richard Stilgoe and sculptor Sir Antony Gormley. Read an extract from the RISE Chapter

In March we received the news that RISE had been awarded the Diversity in Business Accreditation. This was a significant moment for us; it demonstrated that RISE had embedded a progressive and proactive approach to diversity and inclusion.
Our success with this project was largely down to the work of our EDI Working Group. The badge recording our accreditation that appears at the bottom of our email signatures has great significance for RISE, it sends out an important message about who we are: the DiBA accreditation speaks volumes for how we operate, what our priorities are and the value we place on staff.