A program designed to teach parenting and life skills to incarcerated mothers in rural NSW has seen the recidivism rate drop to a sixth of the national average.
The Beyond Barbed Wire program, conducted by children's charity Barnardo's, began targeting mostly incarcerated mothers in western NSW in 2013.
The women, who are mostly Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, are assigned mentors who help them navigate housing and employment support as well as education.
Staying out of prison to provide a stable life for their family becomes a focus of the program.
About 75 per cent of participants said their parenting skills had improved and 95 per cent have a better relationship with their children, a review released by the Western Research Institute on Monday found.
But, in what the review calls a "strong outcome", only seven per cent of the program's participants find themselves back behind bars.
In contrast, 66 per cent of indigenous women in NSW prisons are reoffenders, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Among the women who have found success with the program is Laura, who spent time in Wellington Correctional Centre.
"It took a toll on my kids," she says in a video released with the report.
"I didn't like my kids visiting me or nothing, because I didn't want to let them go."
Laura explains she hadn't had her own house for 10 years and was prone to reoffending before joining the program.
She has now spent two years outside the corrective system.
The program was also found to reduce the cost on health, welfare and justice systems.
"The results of the benefit/cost analysis indicated that for every dollar spent in the Beyond Barbed Wire program, more than two dollars of benefit is returned to the communities where the program is delivered," WRI chief executive Kathy Woolley said in a statement.
