Connections: United Kingdom. Final Report
by Mary Stephenson (profile)

Feedback from venues: 23 October, 2003

HMYOI Feltham (Her Majesty's Youth Offender Institute at Feltham)

Fourteen participants started the course, nine completed. Of the five who did not complete the course, only one dropped out voluntarily (after three weeks). The facilitators felt that he found it hard to deal with emotional issues, as he had cried a lot during the discussions, particularly in the first session when they were discussing the poem, "From a Mother to a Son." The other students who were unable to complete were transferred before the end of the Connections course.

There were four facilitators: two librarians and two prison officers. One of the prison officers attended six of the sessions. She was on holiday for the first two weeks and was unable to attend a further two of the sessions. She appeared to be uneasy with the democratic nature of the programme, not wishing to be called by her first name by the students. One of the facilitators found the sessions very draining, as she had shared her own experiences with the group and had found herself dealing with some issues that were very close to her own. She did say she would like to continue, however.

The group comprised a good mix of ethnic and religious backgrounds and the discussions enabled stereotypes to be broken down. The presence of a prison officer was really positive and one officer said he noticed no lack of respect towards him on the wing from students in the group, despite his having allowed them to call him by his first name and having shared some of his own experiences with them. If anything, he felt they treated him with more respect on the wing than before the programme. He felt the Connections programme could be an extremely valuable way of mixing officers and prisoners and breaking down existing barriers.

The lead facilitator found that there was a lot of work to prepare for the sessions and report on them afterwards. She had also taped material for participants with literacy problems.

The excerpt from "Toy Soldiers" was particularly powerful and led to some important discussion among the group.

Since the course finished, there have been a lot of requests to join "the next Connections group." The facilitators felt disappointed that they were unable to build on the extremely constructive and positive reputation of the course by following it up immediately. They are conscious that the momentum will lessen as the time gap lengthens.

HMYOI Feltham Student Testimonials:

"In the past, when I read books I used to just put the book down without a second thought about it. Now I look for a deeper meaning other than the initial story, and now I try to put myself in that position just to see if I would act in the same way."

"The course made me realise again that books set me free from the bars which I am imprisoned in..."

"I have found it utterly inspiring that literature can bring together ideals of such a variety of people with such diverse backgrounds."

C-Far

Eight participants started the programme, two completed. The six who did not complete had left C-Far for other reasons.

The number of facilitators varied owing to holidays already booked and other commitments. Thus, only one of the facilitators was able to attend every session. There were also other facilitators introduced each week, such as the local community policeman who was not in uniform and who attended two sessions, a family therapy worker, members of the English department, and the training supervisor. It is hard to say whether this had an adverse effect on the dynamics of the group and, at times, students were outnumbered by facilitators, which is not ideal. However, this being the first Connections programme at C-Far, it did enable other staff members to see the programme in action. There had been a good deal of doubt about the Connections programme among the staff at C-Far before it started, but by the end of the ten sessions, the staff had seen the benefits for themselves. For this reason, the Connections programme is continuing at C-Far with a second group underway but with only the one facilitator, Wendy Allen, who led most of the sessions there and is a member of the English Department.

The programme at C-Far had been delayed because of research work going on at the establishment that had to be completed before they could add a new programme to the timetable. Therefore, Connections was unable to start before mid August, and it was decided to run two sessions a week so that it didn't set the overall Connections project back too far.

Unlike the prisons where recruitment had been voluntary, at C-Far, it was incorporated into the programme and participants had to attend. However, at no time did they appear not to want to do Connections, and they were particularly engaged in the discussions. It often seemed that this opportunity to have their views respected and listened to by others was a new experience for the students and an experience that worked particularly well for young, restless, male offenders. This was especially evident in the session that dealt with "Imagine", the John Lennon song. Some of the students were expecting to be told to leave C-Far because of bad behaviour at the weekend, they were therefore very restless. As soon as they were asked for their views on issues relating to the words, their attention was caught, and they appeared to forget their concerns about impending disciplinary measures.

C-Far Student Testimonials:

"...I have never done anything like this before. I enjoyed it very much because it's fun. You also get to hear other people's views, and you get to hear their comments."

"For the course on a whole I found it as a good learning curve in life on how to look into words instead of just reading them and how to listen to other people's views even if you don't agree with ..."

HMP Foston Hall (Her Majesty's Prison at Foston Hall)

Seventeen participants started the programme, sixteen completed. The one participant who dropped out did so early in the course having not appeared to fully engage with the work. As for the rest of the group, they had become really involved with some exciting personal development work, including one student who had thanked a facilitator at the end "for turning my life around."

The facilitators, a prison officer who also acts as the Writer in Residence and a library project worker with a drama background, varied their approaches to the texts and found that the women particularly enjoyed the drama work. In one session, the students were asked to write an accolade to thank someone who had been particularly important in their lives. If they had no such person, they were asked to write to an imaginary person they would have liked to have had in their lives. This produced some very exciting results, and the participants found it a positive and revealing exercise.

The prison officer agreed with the Feltham experience that students had shown her more respect on the wing as a result of her sharing her own views and stories with them during the sessions.

The two facilitators (a third facilitator could not be recruited due to pressure of work among staff) shared the role of lead facilitator, taking it in turns to prepare and lead a session, thus giving themselves two weeks for preparation. They designed their own booklet with a bookmark to give to the women at the beginning of the course to use as a notebook for thoughts on the text and discussions. They wondered whether they should have encouraged the students to make their notes during the sessions and then collect them in to prevent the books being mislaid.

They also adapted the "How I See Myself" form to suit their group, illustrating aspects of the character through different parts of a skeletal body, e.g., heart equals emotions, joints equal flexibility.

The programme excited interest from other departments, notably Probation, which could see the difference it had made to the women and would like to see it incorporated into the regime as a follow on to the ETS (Enhanced Thinking Skills) course. In order to fund this, it would have to be accredited or at least rubber stamped by the Home Office.

The facilitators would very much like to be able to continue the programme and were approached by women wanting to take part, having heard how good it was from their peers.

HMP Foston Hall Participant Testimonial:

"It does appear to me that Connections looks to be compatible with ETS and a good follow up to reinforce the skills and knowledge gained on ETS. This would be particularly so around perspective taking, moral debates, and consequences and sequels. It is useful to have a programme that is cognitive based and challenges pro-criminal attitudes and beliefs. I feel it could build on ETS and consolidate learning. I would hope the course is repeated, and, if it is, I'll be looking to suggest those completing ETS consider going on to do the Connections course." (Ian Maclachlan, Resettlement Manager for ETS).

HMP Bullwood Hall

Eleven participants started the course, ranging in age from 16 to 47 years. The inclusion of DTOs (16- to 18-year-old girls) was initially challenging, and one in particular made her presence strongly felt. In fact, this student was transferred later in the course, and there was a great improvement in the group following her departure. However, they hadn't wanted to remove her from the group because they felt she could potentially benefit a great deal from the work.

Another difficult aspect at the outset was the fact that, by law, the facilitators would have had to report any disclosure of sexual abuse revealed by the under-18s during the discussions. They therefore had to make this known at the first session and were worried that this might have prevented the DTOs from being open about their past experiences.

There were four facilitators, three from Education and a female prison officer who joined them when her duties allowed. They felt her input was particularly valuable in the same way as the other establishments had.

The group was a bit top heavy on lifers, and at one point during a break, these women objected strongly to an explicit text that had contained bad language, saying it was inappropriate with young girls among the group. However, on returning to the room, they discovered that the young girls had found the text particularly enlightening and were unanimous in their praise for it. This mutual learning process for both age groups became an important and positive aspect of the group dynamics.

Again, the facilitators varied their approaches to the texts, and the students were encouraged to write their own poetry, inspired by the texts. This became a very popular aspect of the programme, and in one case, a severely dyslexic student wrote her first poem and read it out, benefiting enormously by the enthusiastic response from the group. Another exercise that worked well was the good angel/bad angel role playing in which one student, faced with an imaginary dilemma (perhaps based on one in the chosen text), was flanked by a bad angel and a good angel, played by other students. The job of these angels was to persuade the central character to tackle the dilemma in a positive/good manner or negative/bad manner and give convincing reasons why.

Once again, the success and reputation of the Connections course has persuaded the facilitators and other staff to try to continue. So far, two of the facilitators have been able to set up a second group with DTOs, running an accredited form of the programme because there is more funding for that age group. Practicalities for running it elsewhere in the establishment, such as uniform staff support for escorting students and timetables for the sessions, not to mention funding to pay facilitators for their time and resources, are proving difficult to address. Once again, the accreditation route, though not enthusiastically welcomed by the facilitators, seemed like the only way round these problems.

Henley House

Like C-Far, Henley House was unlike other establishments in which the Connections course has been run. As a therapeutic community for adults with addiction problems, it has a rolling population of up to nine residents, many of whom have been to prison in the past. Also like C-Far, the Connections programme was integrated into the ongoing programme at Henley House and therefore compulsory to participants.

In all, a total of twelve students took part in the Connections course, plus two more who joined the group for the final session. Once again, like C-Far, students dropped out of the Connections group because they had left Henley House for other reasons. This meant that no one actually attended all ten of the sessions, although one attended eight sessions and another attended seven. Several attended half of them.

The three facilitators had all worked on the Channings Wood Connections programme and were joined for one session by a Henley House project worker who undertook the evaluation. Pressure of work meant that none of the Henley House staff could take part regularly. Interestingly, this was the only group with both male and female students. We were not conscious of this being a problem.

Henley House offers residents a programme of group work to help them manage their addictions, and Connections appeared to complement this work. Initially, it was difficult to get the students talking, and the facilitators were conscious of group pressures that had built up through their other work together. In fact, one particularly strong resident left after week three and the atmosphere improved. By week four, discussions were more animated, and getting students to express their views and experiences became easier. On the other hand, it was only possible to work within this continuous change of students because they spent so much time working together the rest of the week. Had this not been the case, I don't think Connections would have been possible, as the necessary foundation of trust between students would not have been there.

One resident, a middle-aged woman, had never read a whole book before, but the session on Of Mice and Men inspired her to read the novel, which she even took into the sauna with her because she couldn't put it down.

Henley House Student and Participant Testimonials:

In his evaluation of the Connections programme, Henley House project worker Mark Earley said: "The service users at Henley approach Connections with energy and enthusiasm. They look forward to it and are very motivated and active in photocopying, sharing out, and reading texts in preparation. I think it has been an extremely valuable addition to the programme and would love it if there was any way it could continue."

"Connections will always mean three things to me: it was my very first group at Henley, it renewed my love of reading generally, and although I may forget the details, "Sonny's Blues" will always live with me."

"I thoroughly enjoyed these groups and found them to be an important tool towards self-awareness and understanding of human nature and will always be grateful for the renewed passion in, not only reading, but in life itself."

Conclusion

The facilitators all felt that the Connections programme had accomplished the following:

-- Proved to be an effective means of helping people understand human nature, both their own and that of others.

-- Awakened in students a genuine interest in reading literature.

-- Taught students to dig deeper into stories and the characters.

-- Broken down barriers between disparate groups (e.g., officers and prisoners, ethnic and religious groups, different generations).

-- Taught students the value of listening to the views of others and of being listened to.