Manager, Hope Connections
HOPE Connections have now been in partnership with Scottish Prison Service for over two years. This partnership has gone from strength to strength and strong relationships have been formed with both officers as well as more importantly inmates.
In last year’s Annual Reporter article Hope – Connecting a Community of People – I told you about our Living Outreach Team who jump-In beside people in crisis or at risk of being / returning to crisis and how with that service:
– We walk with people to connect them into different partner organisations and onto person-centred life-enhancing pathways.
– We live-life with people as they are a ‘community of people’ – not a Service.
– We see the evidence every day of Changed People, Changing People, and the positive ripple effect this has across families, friends, and local communities.
We have invested effort in building relationships with statutory services, commissioned services, and other organisations in the city – even being trained by services including Simon Community Scotland, Shelter Scotland and Turning Point Scotland, as our added value in promoting a person-centred approach has been recognised.
We have demonstrated that we understand the whole system landscape in the city and have proven that we can offer flexible, agile, and truly person-centred support that is difficult for services to provide.
In this article I wanted to update you on our work over the last year. We now have two staff members present in HMP Barlinnie situated between the Resource Hub and Wellbeing Centre 4 days a week. Their purpose is to make available one to one support as well as facilitating groups.
Meeting on release is also available where we offer wrap around, person centred care for the individuals’ varied requirements within the community.
Our group topics include supporting people with:
- addiction issues; and
- the impact of psychological trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s).
These groups have proven to be very effective – we have lots of interest and a waiting list for both. What has also come from the Trauma Group is the need for one-to-one support. This is not counselling per se but instead a programme of support that explores the link between trauma and addiction. It does however highlight the benefits of ‘talking therapy’ which is hoped will lead on to counselling on release.
Each session lasts for 2 hours and there are 25 topics. This would mean an individual would be supported for at least 25 weeks – some topics can take longer than the two hours and are tailored to suit individual requirements. To date we have two people who have consecutively completed the 25-week course and have both stated they benefited hugely from this treatment. This has led to recommendations by these individuals making this our most sought-after intervention.
Feedback from prison staff has been that they have witnessed positive behavioural changes in these attendees. It is our hope that by exploring the many reasons for offending behaviours and understanding these, we can look at trying to break the cycle.
“The Seeking Safety as well as the other groups facilitated by HOPE Connections have been very well received within HMP Barlinnie.
HOPE Connections has provided a lifeline to prisoners in our care who require 1:1 support. The pilot course has seen 4 prisoners complete the 25-week programme and the feedback is really positive.
Joan is amazing with the prisoners and is very well respected in our centre.
Joan’s friendly approach and manner makes it a safe space for prisoners to offload their issues. The seeking safety course in particular, has been a vital part of the wellbeing centre.”
Craig’s* story:
Craig attended our pilot addiction group and stated that he had benefitted from the content. Despite him using drugs on a couple of occasions within our time working with him most of the time he was clean.
Craig also offered to sit in on the first Trauma Group within the prison to give feedback and critique on both the content and delivery of this group due to it being the first delivery in a prison setting.
A relationship was developed with Craig, and he was the first person to request we work with him on a one-to-one basis carrying out Seeking Safety.
Craig advised he had been in and out of prison all his adult life and prior to this had been in secure accommodation. He supplied his timeline (see below). This demonstrates clear links with his substance misuse, trauma, and offending behaviours.
Craig completed all topics, attending every week with no absences. He completed all homework tasks linked to each session. It was explained to him that the treatment states ‘you are 3 times more likely to heal if you do so’.
There was a marked improvement in his behaviour and outlook after approximately session 4 of the treatment whereby he was beginning to see the links in his behaviours.
Craig was confident that he would be able to change his life on his release. His only concern was that due to the amount of time spent incarcerated he knew that he was institutionalised, and he was afraid he would begin to display these behaviours again as he had done so in the past. He recognised he had replicated the way he lived outside to mirror his cell by living, sleeping, and cooking in one room despite having a one-bedroom flat.
We offered him support on his release and stated both himself personally and HOPE Connections as an organisation would look out for any change and address these issues as they occurred.
He initially engaged with us on a regular basis seeking support for his day-to-day issues as well as attending the necessary support for his addiction.
Unfortunately, we did not hear from him for a week. We were then informed via the prison that he was back in custody for an attempted murder charge. He awaits a court date for sentencing.
We met with him to discuss what had happened. He said he basically could not cope on the outside despite feeling the best prepared he had ever been. He stated he felt if he had been able to work on himself for a bit longer before being released things would never have resulted in him being back in the same situation.
As he is institutionalised – and has been all his life – 25 weeks of addressing his issues on this occasion were not enough to allow him to change his life. He could not cope, so to block his feelings out he slipped back into addiction. This then led to him not thinking straight and getting caught up in a situation where he responded with falling back into past behaviours and violence.
Despite this being a tragic result, it has not been the end for Craig. He continues to look at his issues in the hope he can become a better person. He still works alongside HOPE Connections in looking at developing information in regards to institutionalisation and how hopefully he can turn his life around.
Alan’s* story:
Alan was referred to HOPE Connections via our liaison officer within the prison. He advised he was a very angry individual, who could not self- regulate his emotions, and like Craig had been in care and prison most of his life. He had heard of Seeking Safety and had shown an interest in attending this course. When we first met him, he was hard to engage with and did not appear as committed as we had been informed. However, he quickly began to change his behaviour and appeared to be taking a lot from the content of the material we were working on. As the weeks have gone on his attitude has changed completely and both himself and prison officers have noticed many positive changes. He is less easily angered and when he is he does not respond in violence as he has done in the past. Again, he has attended all sessions except for one. He advised he had received bad news on this week, and this was the reason given. He has completed all his homework tasks showing commitment to the treatment.
Alan is due to be released at the end of September. The Seeking Safety treatment will have been completed by this date. Alan has requested he link in with us on his release which has been agreed.
*Names have been changed for the purpose of this report
HOPE Connection’s has supported a total of 887 individuals within the Criminal Justice System within the reporting period (01/04/22 – 31/03/23).
- 746 have attended either the resource or wellbeing hubs – receiving support on various issues.
- Those we have been unable to support as an organisation we have referred on to partner agencies whereby this is their area of expertise.
- We have offered intense support to 98 Individuals. This includes one to one support either within the prison or on release. It also incorporates the figures for our group sessions as well as the support given where we have had people go from prison straight to rehab.
- We have also supported a total of 46 people intensively within the community along with supplying mobile phones, emergency food parcels, kettle packs, power top ups etc.
Over the year our HOPE Connections team has been growing, learning and developing – I look forward to seeing what we can achieve going forward building on the strong foundations that we have created.