I feel the warmth of peer support; these people know my journey and I know theirs.

Paula Harriott
8/07/2013

Between 2004 and 2008 I was a prisoner, serving the majority of my sentence at HMP Drake Hall in Staffordshire, a semi open prison holding around 400 women. I arrived there desolate and angry; missing my five children, and facing long, sad, frustrating, agonising days and nights as I came to terms with the eight year sentence.  Prison for women is like going back to junior school….yes miss, no miss, can I go to the toilet miss….it doesn't do much for your self esteem or self confidence for sure as you soak up the atmosphere of control and correction.

Last month I returned to HMP Drake Hall, not on recall, but working as Head of Programmes for User Voice. I walked around the prison, revisiting memories and my main focus was on a small blue hut in the centre of the prison, called the Signpost. In many ways my journey to User Voice started there in that little blue hut with no heating in the winter (freezing). But what it signified to me and to all my peers was a refuge from the authority of the prison. The Signpost was the first peer support project at Drake Hall. Two prisoners (one of them me) escaped the drudgery of cleaning and kitchens to sit in that hut, unsupervised by staff, and support other women to access education courses, fill in complaints, read their mail, get information about how best to survive in prison and generally just be a welcoming space for those that needed a bit of humanity in the midst of the institutional coldness that is prison. In the Signpost we made tea, talked like free people and generally gave each other support to get through the drama and tension that is prison. 

In two years the number of women undertaking distance learning courses rose to over 60, a first at that prison, and the number of complaints also rose dramatically. At that time complaining was the only option by which to exercise voice; there was no prison council. The Governor soon recognised that the Signpost was a hub of information regarding what was going on in the prison and would often pop in for a cup of tea and a chat about issues, seeking to understand the mood of the prison and using myself and the other peer supporters as a barometer to test out new ideas, proposed changes and generally find out how his staff were doing. He was willing to listen to both good and bad. (I have visited that Governor too, now managing a large male prison, in my capacity as Head of Programmes at User Voice.) Without knowing it I was developing and practising the skills needed in the co-production methodology that underpins the work of User Voice.

So in the Signpost I learnt the value of peer support and how it can benefit prisoners. How it can contribute to a better experience of prison, how it can offer support to those who have only ever been exposed to pain and brutality outside; mirrored in the prison regime, life feels no different to the norm. The informal talking and motivation to look forward, the modelling of compassionate non-judgmentalism to all those who came through the door of the Signpost was a stark contrast to the cultural norm of the institution. It was peer support that got me through my prison sentence, that helped me to understand myself better and challenged me the deepest, because I was not paralysed by fear when communicating; I was keenly aware of the power the prison staff had over my life and did not ever trust the hand they offered along the way. They offered control and surveillance, not motivation nor hope in change.

I came to User Voice, still in pain and anguish caused by that prison sentence, but here at User Voice I have once again found the refuge of the Signpost; a space to be me, to own my failings, to acknowledge my strengths and celebrate my successes. Working in an organisation, staffed by 80% ex-offenders, I feel the warmth of peer support; these people know my journey and I know theirs, not from a book but from personal experience. It’s a pain that binds and in the unity we have strength, build resilience and find freedom. 

Change can and will take place if we all work together hard enough for it.

Garry Waller
25/06/2013

I think first and foremost it is essential for me to highlight that User Voice has been fundamentally instrumental in the growth and skills that I have acquired over the past 2 years.

On saying that, the reason I joined User Voice was that I thought- looking at the model they used- it is simplistic and very holistic. Subsequently, it looked like the rewards that were potentially on offer for service providers and service users were, from my experience, totally unimaginable.

With my background, having spent the best part of 15 years engulfed in the criminal justice system, I was quite sceptical. Based on my own experiences I was doubtful of just how much of an impact the service users that we engage with could actually have on organisations such as London Probation, whose policies have been built around red tape and bureaucracy.

How wrong could I have been; the changes that have taken place and continue to take place on a daily basis are fruitful and appetizing.

More importantly, for me the energy that has been stirred up within the service user community has been the most satisfying to watch; equipping themselves with the adequate skills to become active citizens.

I have worked with well over a hundred service users; lots of them have successfully completed their orders for the first time, lots more have moved on to gainful employment and lots continue to work voluntarily on councils as members that represent some of the most marginalized groups of people in the country. Now that is what it is about for me.

Change can and will take place if we all work together hard enough for it.

"Truth is on the side of the oppressed" - Malcolm X.

User Voice: The voice to help you help yourself

Eddie Karwhoo
17/06/2013

User Voice have been an inspiration to service users around the UK by giving people a voice and saying to them that we have been there before, we understand your problems, we will give you the voice to help you help yourself.

It happened to me and I have met over hundreds of people that are in the same position as me.

I started with User Voice in Maidstone prison in 2010. Since then I have been a volunteer both in Kent and London.

Where User Voice play a big role is helping service users to change their perception about probation. They make you feel that you have a working relationship to improve your life - it gives you confidence that if others can make it then you can. 

It gives you the opportunity to express yourself in a positive way.

In all, User Voice is a big family that holds hand together and when anybody is drowning they extend their hands to take you out.

Words have power. Choose them wisely.

Anne-Marie Douglas

20/05/2013

I find the term ‘Participation’ relating to young people’s involvement in service provision patronising by its very definition. It aspires to the notion that children and young people are allowed to participate or offer their views on services that adults run, some of the time, and when it suits the adults who make the decisions about services designed to meet their needs.

I could talk about theories and degrees of participation, and of course tokenism, but it is all meaningless if service users don’t understand it; language used to demonstrate service user involvement is exclusively the language of professionals and so incorporates the power imbalance inherent within. If you ask a 16 year old attending a Youth Offending Service they may or may not know what ‘Participation’ means, especially to Professionals, but they will know the reasons why they (and their families) will or won’t engage with services. They will also likely have some thought provoking and insightful ideas into ways to increase engagement, and in our experience, will often want to help others who face similar circumstances. However, they will probably have to trust you to tell you what they know and therein lies the challenge.

We know from our own experience that trusting support agencies isn’t easy for some young people and families. I could tell you stories of staff, young people and families involved with projects at User Voice that you’d never forget, but they have been forgotten and failed by the many, many agencies that have been in their lives, not being listened to, not having a voice, feeling betrayed and not having consistent, trusted support at the times they most needed to help them to navigate and access these services. Professional service providers often call some groups of young people and families, ‘hard to reach’ and ‘disaffected’ (there seems to be a need to define the complexity of their situations from an external perspective). I can tell you that this is the very group we find ‘easy to reach’, and it is the professional service providers who can be ‘hard to reach’!

It is not enough to be ‘experts by experience’ though; we know, (because service users tell us) that we have to create the conditions that support young peoplein their journeys to self-discovery, (rather than simply counting reductions in re-offending as a measure of success) and to support them to access professional help. We do this by developing trusted, secure and consistent relationships, individual care and offering a choice based ‘open door’ approach that allows individuals to opt in and out as they wish, when they wish and to engage for as long as they need.

We could talk theoretically about attachment, inherent person centred approaches incorporating congruence, empathy and positive regard that support how we engage young people in the criminal justice system. But let’s keep it real (this is a User Voice blog after all!), this isn’t rocket science; many people instinctively know about this because it is the way we should look after and nurture our children; they need to know you care. So I ask, and will keep on asking, “Why is it still not happening in services designed to meet the needs of our most damaged and vulnerable children and young people”?

Involving service users meaningfully is a movement toward integrating service users into co-producing services, in partnership with professionals, designed to meet their individual needs. When we extend this into reaching and giving voice to our most vulnerable children and young people in society it will be a revolution in their service provision.

For me the Council work we do in prisons is all about legitimacy

Jason Warr

11/05/2013

In the Woolf Report (1991), perhaps the most forward thinking report into prison
conducted by any member of the Establishment, Lord Woolf noted that

… a recurring theme in the evidence from prisoners who … were involved in the [Strangeways] riots was that their actions were a response to the manner in which they were treated by the prison system. Although they did not always use these terms, they felt a lack of justice.

In practical terms this meant that the prisoner participants of that, and other disturbances, were involved because they perceived their environment, and the authority inherent within it, as illegitimate. 

Legitimacy in prisons is something of a thorny and complicated issue (see Sparks et al 1996) and of course in this situation we are discussing the perspectives of two related but variant populations; which makes for an even more complicated picture. However, in essence people confer legitimacy to organisations or systems if and only if there is a shared commitment to the cultural, normative or structural values that underpin those organisations/systems.

Within the carceral state of England and Wales, the legitimacy of communities has most commonly relied upon a conjunction of the democratic nature of the community and the joint enterprise of therapy, which exists in the various TC models and units that are scattered throughout the prison service. However, for the majority of prisoners, who exist outside of these communities, legitimacy can be in short supply.

The problem then arises that if legitimacy is in short supply how do we keep prisons this side of the brink of disorder and riot? Having had experience of ‘a disturbance’ in prison believe me you do not want a prison to descend into the brutal maelstrom of disorder. It does no one any favours, not the participants, not staff and not the wider population or indeed the public. So what can be done to ensure this does not happen?

One such mechanism is involving prisoners in the regime in which they must exist, involving them in shaping the manner of their incarceration. This is not, as some of the more right wing press may attest, pandering to the whims of prisoners but is instead the opening of a dialogue between what can often be two entrenched and openly hostile populations –prisoners and the prison.

Ever since the Woolf report there has been a recognition of the importance of this process but many of the experiments have failed. The User Voice model has not failed. It has not failed because our engagement both instils from the outset, and maintains throughout, objectivity and open democracy – which can in turn lead to a process of communitisation (the adoption of the community values and structure) and thus legitimacy.  How does it do this?

Simples! Council’s fail when there is no investment (and thus no action) from the Number 1 Governor, if the prisoners who end up on it are staff favourites or patsies and have no respect throughout the population and if the Senior Management Team become alienated through the Council’s negativity. We solve these issues. How? Well, that would be telling … trade secrets and all that (I could tell you but then I would have to …)!

Let us just say that investment is ensured by contracting us in, we engage with the whole population whether they be those with GOAD issues (those like us!) or not and we are solution driven and focused. See, simples (maybe).

So for me its all about legitimacy. Without it Gaols fall, with it … well its not a panacea but it enables a process of dialogue, collaboration, co-production, civility, pro-socialisation, increased social capital and ultimately improved relationships and then … peace! 

That’s why I’m there, that’s why I do what I do.

Co-production : what does it mean in the criminal justice system?

Daniel Hutt

26/04/2013

User Voice sits on the National Co-production Critical Friends Group (more here), a group of national policymakers, academics and researchers which acts as a source of thinking, challenge, collaboration and networking in the area of co-production.
info 

Co-production is becoming more accepted as a way of service providers and service users working together in the public sector. But what does it actually mean? There are lots of definitions around, so as a Group we tried to come up with something that encompassed them all:

"Co-production is a relationship where professionals and citizens share power to plan and deliver support together, recognising that both sides have vital contributions to make in order to improve quality of life for people and communities."

We hope that this definition is a clear description of the concept for those who are new to the term. And key to it was that if you are thinking of taking on co-production yourself, we would recommend creating a local definition.

Co-production exists in various forms, to varying degrees in a range of settings from health and social care to housing. But what about the criminal justice system?

User Voice was founded in 2009 because co-production in this area was almost non-existent. Some might argue there is a moral argument that differentiates criminal justice from other areas. People have committed a crime and therefore relinquished the right to be involved in decision making processes.

But if we want to reduce re-offending – and surely everyone does – then it makes business sense to include people who know most about how to do this. If T-Mobile executives designed a new mobile phone in an office without working with its customers and expected it to be a success then they would be laughed out of the boardroom.

Yet this is exactly the approach taken in criminal justice.

What does co-production in this context actually mean? How can it work?

Prisons and probation are often places where things are done to, rather than done with, service users – prisoners and offenders. But there are examples, which we have promoted and developed, of service users being involved in the co-design and co-delivery of services.

There are examples of co-delivery especially around peer mentoring in its various forms. And there are a number of forums and committees for people to get involved in co-design, such as wing committees and race relations representatives in prisons. But these have limited degrees of power, a crucial element of co-production as stated in the definition above.

So what we have tried to do is facilitate a safe and credible model of co-production that works in the criminal justice system. We haven’t reinvented the wheel, but we’ve made it fit. We use a ‘council’ model, with elected representatives meeting with senior managers to put forward proposals for change within prisons, probation or other related services and acting as a sounding board for new ideas or changes to existing provision. It doesn’t sound ground breaking, but when you see it in action (you can see videos here) the results are incredible given the traditional power dynamics of the system.

We are not advocating that people don’t deserve to be in prison or on probation for a crime that they have committed. They do. And we are not saying that the ‘lunatics should run the asylum’ – a charge so often levelled against us. What we are saying is that as a society, if we truly want our criminal justice system to help people reform so that when they come out of prison, they are less likely to commit another crime, then we need to include them in finding the answer.

Failing to include people only leads to further exclusion and desperation, igniting rather than easing anti-social behaviour, violence and criminality. Only by involving these people in the decision making process, can we give them what they need to make it back into mainstream society.