Prisons

Photograph Warwick Sweeney

The educational charity Safe Ground have been working in partnership with HM Prison Service and the Offenders Learning and Skills Unit in the development of family relationships and parenting education designed to meet the very specific learning needs of male prisoners.  Over 800 prisoners and staff from 14 prisons have been involved in this initiative which has produced two pioneering new courses: Family Man and Fathers Inside.

What sets these highly structured courses apart is that they use drama, fiction and group work to engage and motivate resistant learners.  Each course is written to accommodate a mixed ability group of 20 prisoners who work intensively with each other over 20 consecutive week days.  Students experience games and drama exercises designed to engage and stimulate their imagination whilst learning and practising social behaviours that will enable them to co-operate and accommodate each other throughout the course.  The group also practice how to listen, think and discuss ideas in turn, answer questions and submit written work for assessment.  Each course concludes with an assessed presentation to an audience of their peers.  This approach gives responsibility to the group for realising the event and enables them to demonstrate the skills and communicate and knowledge they have learnt.

Fathers Inside and Family Man are accredited courses that have been mapped to criteria from the Social and Life Skills, Key Skills and Adult Literacy curriculum.  All students’ resources have been designed in consultation with prisoners, including an award winning film, ‘Blinda’, written and produced by prisoners from HMP Wandsworth.

The concept for developing education by “prisoners for prisoners” originated from inmates at HMP Wandsworth who wanted a learning experience that could help them to find constructive ways of preventing their children from engaging in criminal behaviour.  This meant that Safe Ground needed to rethink how to facilitate learning in a prison environment.  As a result the lesson plans for Family Man and Fathers Inside therefore contain very detailed step-by-step instructions to give teachers, who may be new to using drama techniques and family relationships or parenting education different ideas on how to manage and deliver an intensive learning experience in a prison and to a student population who have failed to achieve at school.

Family Man, the family relationships course, was launched in 2002 and has been delivered successfully in 15 prisons.  Fathers Inside, which focuses on parenting from prison, will be available from July 2004.  Both courses have been positively evaluated by the National Foundation for Educational Research (2002), with a further evaluation being carried out by De-Montfort University due to be published this June.

For more information contact: safeground@aol.com

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Askham Grange near York is a women’s open prison that has successfully been running the Share programme since November 2005. The Family Learning team has been able to adapt the Share programme to meet the challenges faced by working in a prison environment with a range of creative solutions. The scheme of work initially used the making and using learning materials module run over 15 input sessions alongside a range of activities e.g. National Curriculum, SEN, literacy hour etc. Feedback from the women who attended the course has been very positive. Outcomes from the course include:- links developed with child’s school before resettlement, engages women in mutual shared support, discussion on parenting issues and strategies. For more information please contact Andrea Gibbons on 019044772020 or e-mail andrea.gibbons@hmps.gsi.gov.uk

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Action for Prisoners Families - Daisy & Tom Award

The Daisy and Tom Award is a competition rewarding prisons for initiatives that improve contact between prisoners and their families. HMPs Bristol, Wandsworth and Stafford have took the top prizes, withstanding tough competition from more than 20 prisons across England and Wales who took part in the awards. Storybook Dads, based at HMP Dartmoor received a Special Award. Many of the projects submitted involved partnerships with the voluntary sector. The Awards come on the back of two Government reports acknowledging both the importance of good family contact in reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, and the damage imprisonment has on the children and families of offenders. For more information please visit the action for Prisoners website www.prisonersfamilies.org.uk

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Campaign for Learning - Family Learning Working with Offenders
A new guide for extending family learning opportunities for offenders has been produced by Campaign for Learning, in partnership with Action for Prisoners’ Families. The publication evidences the benefits of a family learning approach and highlights its contribution to recruitment and retention on learning programmes, effective resettlement and contributes to the Home Office’s Reducing Re-offending National Action Plan. Free copies of the guide are available by emailing Kerry Flynn kflynn@cflearning.org.uk or you can download the attachment below

Attachments

Campaign for Learning - Family Learning Working with Offenders

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