ABSTRACT
Safe Ground is an arts education organization working with people in prison, secure settings and local communities, using the arts to develop educational access and to strengthen relationships and identities. Safe Ground is also a practice-based organization whose delivery and interventions address some of the issues arising for the people we describe as ‘domestically dislocated populations’. Home is a melange of space, time, memory, imagination and geographical locations but, primarily, it is a set of complex relationships with other people. It is people that make places either hostile or hospitable. At Safe Ground we believe that learning to understand relationships is as important as learning to read and write and that connected communities are stronger, safer and more secure places to be. The individuals’ resulting desistance from crime and self-destructive behaviour is a main positive outcome; underlying it all, and crucially, home, both internally and externally, becomes a place of welcome, safety, security and development, enabling positive-decision-making.
