Readconnect

About the programme

Storytelling workshops to help families bond

Readconnect helps participants to use storytelling to bond with their children and young family members while they are in prison. Participants attend sessions to build their confidence and learn new skills such as telling stories and reading aloud. Following the workshops, the participants will use their new skills on visits, family day sessions, and over the phone with their children and young family members.

Encouraging connection with resource packs and in-cell tech

Alongside delivering workshops, the project offers in-cell resource packs based on storytelling and building literacy. The resource packs include activities which can be completed with a child over the phone or through post, so that participants can continue to form meaningful relationships with their children between family day sessions and visits.

The project also provides digital resources – from tips on reading aloud to writing a children’s story – which are uploaded and shared via the tech available in the prisons.

Sharing the joys of a good book with book gifting

Finally, Readconnect donates a wide range of books and resources, with the aim of empowering participants to read and engage with their children through literature and storytelling. We support both prisons with books suitable for a range of ages in the library and the visitors’ centre, and we gift books in activity packs used during family days.

What is the need?

Maintaining strong connections with children and families plays a vital role in supporting the rehabilitation and resettlement of people in prison. Regular contact with family members can support mental health and wellbeing, add structure and stability to their lives (and those of their children and family members), and give meaning to their rehabilitation.

However, despite the importance of family ties for prisoners and their families outside, the support for maintaining family relationships is often limited. Family related issues are concentrated within the custodial estate as 53% of the prison population have children under the age of 18 (compared to the 27% of the over 18 general population). The Government’s research shows 56% of families said money had affected their ability to stay in touch with a loved-one in prison. Only 29% of men said they had been able to see family or friends in person in the last month, falling to 17% in the high secure estate. Population pressures also mean that many prisoners were held further from home.

Thanks to the Readconnect project, parents at HMP Swaleside and HMP Downview were given the chance to bond with their children and young family members. The targeted workshops and activity packs teach parents how to spend time with their children, using activities proven to improve speech, language and communication skills. This helps makes them feel and recognise the valuable role they play in their children’s learning.

Readconnect workshops:

Readconnect officially launched in April 2022, and has so far delivered the following workshops across the three, and soon four prisons:

• Bringing bedtime telephone calls to life, with Kestrel Theatre Company
• Early years creative writing with Peter Bently, and illustrations to accompany with John Bond
• Masculinity, fatherhood and poetry with Yomi Sode
• Writing children’s stories with Patrice Lawrence
• Writing poetry for your children with Kate Wakeling

Readconnect feedback:

We have been delighted with the positive project feedback so far.

A participant who attended a Readconnect workshop at HMP Parc, said:

"Thank you for allowing me to know read together with my son over the phone and on prison video call. It is awesome that we can do this, and I wish to thank everyone involved in making this happen. A massive thanks from myself and my family. As my son is autistic and he is 6, he has a reading age of the second year of comprehensive school. He loves reading and the book sent he loves, and we are currently reading [...] if any more books are available down the line I and my son would love the chance to read them together. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you very much.'

A participant who attended a workshop at HMP Downview, said:

“It was very energetic, loads of shared skills and it gave me confidence in communicating with my child and it gave me a good boost.”

A staff member at HMP Swaleside, who helped facilitate a workshop, said:

“The workshops have provided a safe and open environment. They have been an opportunity for the men to really focus on their thoughts, put their anxieties aside and produce fantastic work; which they have carried on with in their cells, they have been proud of and they have been able to share with their children. I have seen the men in the hall reading the books to their children and they have been reading the books over the phone. The men and myself only wish the workshops were longer. Such an amazing provision offering outstanding workshops, resources, activities and future opportunities.”

Another staff member at HMP Swaleside, said,

“One prisoner came out of his shell when talking about children within his family. I believe it opened his eyes about different styles of interactions he could have even if they were not face to face and you could see a stronger connection and ideas developing.”

Author Steve Camden, who delivered a workshop at HMP Swaleside, said:

"I’ve been leading creative sessions and sharing my practice for nearly twenty years now and it’s sessions like the ones I was part of today at HMP Swaleside that feel like the epitome of the purpose in my work.

The energy, potential and open generosity created between strangers in the most extreme of circumstances has felt like a genuine gift to be part of.

The value in the work was undeniable and I feel very lucky to be given the opportunity via Rebecca and the National Literacy Trust to share practice, ideas and stories with the men. More please."

Author Peter Bently, who delivered a workshop at HMP Swaleside, said:

"The Readconnect workshops at HMP Swaleside were among of the most rewarding I have ever done. I was incredibly impressed by the willingness of the men to engage in the sessions, and by the imagination and creativity they demonstrated in their writing. They all said how much they had enjoyed the sessions, and in fact their only regrets were that the workshops weren't longer, and that there weren't more of them."

Poet Kate Wakeling, who delivered a workshop at HMP Downview, said:

"It felt like an unexpectedly amazing day. I still feel so shocked and saddened by what prisons are, but alongside all of this I also found it a really uplifting and hopeful experience to be there. I loved meeting the women and I'm so glad their response to the workshops was so warm. I can't stop thinking about the wonderful work they created that they're now going to share with their children. I felt really well supported in planning and delivering the sessions – by both NLT and the prison library staff. This feels like the most rewarding project I've ever taken part in.”

Rebecca Bostock, Learning and Skills Manager at HMP Swaleside, said:

"In the 25 years of working within the prison service this is one of the few times I have been overwhelmed by the impact and change that can be achieved by engaging men in the right activities, in the right way, for the right reasons and with the right professionals. The resources are unbelievable quality and enabling the men and their families to share the same books gives an invisible connection that cannot be measured."

Read the 2022/23 evaluation of Readconnect.

If you would like more details about the Readconnect project, please email Rebecca.james@literacytrust.org.uk