Good parenting from prison

I set up Create in 2003 to give disadvantaged and vulnerable people the opportunity to transform their lives. We take professional artists from a range of disciplines (music, art, dance, creative writing and drama) into places where arts provision is low, and where they can design projects that are tailored to each community’s unique needs. We use creativity collaboratively to develop trusting relationships, build confidence and self-esteem and explore creative self-expression. We have been working with prison inmates for eleven years and developed Inside Stories in 2008 to provide young parents with the opportunity to bond with their children. Prisoners work in pairs with our professional artists to write and illustrate original stories inspired by their children. They then work with our musicians as a team to create musical soundscapes, which they record alongside a reading of their story. Finally, they perform their stories and music at a special family visit and give their professionally printed storybook with CD to their children. It is a holistic approach to working, where each artform feeds into the next to create a multi-sensory experience.

Through collaboration and sharing ideas, they develop diplomacy, empathy and group problem-solving skills

Every time we begin the project, we meet a few prisoners who are apprehensive and fear it is too ambitious. Many lack confidence in their writing skills, and indeed low levels of literacy are common in prison (National Literacy Trust reported that 25% of offenders have reading skills lower than the average seven year old). Surprised by his ability to write a story, one young father said: “I never thought I’d be able to do this”, while others have said that they didn’t think they could write or draw. What they are telling us is that they did not believe they could achieve. Creating a story for a child is a highly rewarding process but for those who were excluded from school or never received the support to develop basic grammar skills, it can seem a daunting task. As one prison worker suggested, the ‘macho’ barrier could have got in the way but Inside Stories makes it cool to be a dad who engages with their children.

Getting involved in Inside Stories is not compulsory but is a project that prisoners can opt into. Doing something for their children is a sensitive topic for many who are inside. The feelings of love and care are there, but prisoners often feel limited in how they feel safe to express this. By producing a storybook, these parents produce something tangible, unique and personal to give to their child. According to the Ministry of Justice, maintaining family ties can reduce the risk of reoffending by 39%, so projects that encourage families to bond play an important role in terms of rehabilitation. A father told us: “It’s an incentive to make you want to change, to make you not want to go back to prison because you’re missing time with your family.” A huge challenge is the re-adjustment that prisoners face upon release and this can lead to reoffending. Inside Stories helps to address this by enabling young parents to bond with their children over a creative work that they have had the discipline, concentration and commitment to produce. It also gives them simple storytelling, art and music skills to use with their children.

Central to our approach is the use of creative activities to build confidence and self-esteem. You do not have to be a professional artist working on a professional level to engage with the arts. Everyone has something valuable to contribute and we are all capable of exploring our creativity. The arts make people feel good, and when these young parents feel good about themselves and confident in their abilities to be capable parents, they experience the rewards of creating something positive. We invest time in them and in return they invest time in themselves and the people they love the most. These young parents even talk about looking forward to helping their children with their homework.

In the process of creating their storybooks, the prisoners develop skills that they can use within the prison and upon release. Prisoners who previously struggled to work with others now enjoy working together as a team. Through collaboration and sharing ideas, they develop diplomacy, empathy and group problem-solving skills. Some talk about wanting to volunteer at youth clubs and use the arts to engage young people and reduce crime; others have more general ambitions of using their newly learned skills to help people within disadvantaged communities. Inside Stories has inspired these young men and women to believe in themselves and have ambitions to help others. The arts have immense value to society, and it is projects like these that demonstrate that the social impact of creativity should never be underestimated.

Nicky Goulder is Chief Executive of Create.
www.createarts.org.uk