Youth Work in Custody: Behind bars

Talking to Helen Presland, you'd think that she ran a run-of-the-mill youth project in a community centre. She talks about how the young people she is working with have set up a smoothie stall, produced a healthy eating booklet and raised money for an old people's home.

But the young people Presland works with aren't your average teenagers. They are, in fact, female young offenders who have been sentenced to custody in New Hall Young Offender Institution (YOI) in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Presland is a senior project worker for the YMCA Offender Services Unit, which is running the XL Club project, an accredited youth-led programme devised by The Prince's Trust that includes YMCA personal development sessions.

Providing vital social skills

The young women she works with are aged 17 and have convictions for a variety of crimes ranging from assault to robbery. They attend the XL Club for six hours a week and take part in activities ranging from discussions around global issues to arts and crafts. The aim is to build self-esteem, develop personal and social skills, and also give them time to simply "chill out and relax".

But running youth work projects such as the XL Club in a YOI isn't easy. YOIs, by their very nature, are at odds with youth work: they are primarily about punishment and discipline, while youth work is about informal learning, developing social skills and having fun. Every activity Presland wants to undertake has to gain approval from prison staff, some of whom have little understanding of youth work. "Delivering youth work in prison is hard," she says. "But you just have to get used to it."

New Hall governor Gareth Sands believes his YOI is progressive in its use of outside agencies. It works with a variety of organisations and "embraces a multi-agency approach", he says. "Youth workers are included in this and together the staff involved at New Hall form part of a rich tapestry of support," he adds.

Keeley Barnes is the project manager for the five XL Club schemes run in YOIs by the YMCA. She believes some prison staff don't value the work of the project "because it doesn't have measured outcomes and we're not driven by performance indicators. That's the main problem," she says.

Chaotic background

Many of the young people who end up in custody have chaotic backgrounds. Some may have drug addictions or mental health problems and most will have struggled at school. Having youth workers on site gives them access to impartial support and the opportunity to learn skills in an informal way.

"The girls are gaining social skills, the type of skills they'll use in everyday life," says Presland. "These include communication skills, learning how to speak in a group, listening to other people, respecting each other and building their self-esteem. A lot of these are skills the girls don't have."

The fact that some staff don't see or understand the value can be a frustrating experience. In one case, a YMCA project for young people in custody has come to a complete standstill. The youth worker there quit because she couldn't stand what Barnes describes as an "oppressive atmosphere".

"We used to have problems from the officers making comments such as 'We've got a play group downstairs run by YMCA'," says Barnes. "But when Ofsted and the chief inspector of prisons came to do their inspections, our work was highly recommended.

"The youth worker was one of the best I've worked with but, in the end, she'd just had enough."

Friction with prison staff

Barnes believes there are ways of overcoming these issues. For example, the establishment in question is considering offering prison officers training and involving them more in the running of the project. Laura Kirk, an adviser for YMCA's project for 21- to 25-year-olds in HMP Channings Wood in Devon, has found it possible to work through the challenges. Her project began last October and delivers the accredited youth work programme the Youth Achievement Awards to young prisoners. To begin with, Kirk experienced similar difficulties with prison staff but has found that, in time, she has become a valued member of the team.

"It was a long process of building those relationships and being taken seriously to a certain extent, because youth work is not something that's generally appreciated," she says. "But the prison is starting to appreciate it a lot more. Prisons are difficult places to work in, and the officers can be frustrating to work with, but the staff we work with now are generally very good."

Kirk and her team have spent many hours raising awareness of what they do. They have put up posters of the young people's work produced during youth work sessions and started to link their work with other agencies, such as those involved with housing and education.

Kirk is also quick to point out that youth workers need to respect the prison regime and understand the security constraints. In the past, her team used to deliver work on the wing that houses the cells, but they found they would be interrupted by prison staff needing to lock away inmates, often at short notice and with little explanation. Now the project is run in a boardroom far away from the cells, which also appeals more to the young people.

Junior Smart also believes it is possible for youth workers to enjoy a good working relationship with YOIs and prisons. Smart is a youth worker with the St Giles Trust's SOS Project. He says that during two years of working in Kent YOIs and prisons, he has never experienced any problems with staff. The project, which claims to be the first of its kind in the UK, trains and employs ex-offenders as youth workers. The former offenders then provide support and advice to young offenders, particularly those involved with gangs.

Smart served time in custody himself so he knows what it's like to be locked up. He says he can provide a positive role model for young offenders, and uses his own experiences to show them that they too can turn their lives around.

Objective support

For Smart, youth workers provide objective support, free of what he calls the "ulterior motives" of social workers, police, prison officers, and even friends and family members. Plus the programme is voluntary.

The prisons he works with have been supportive, which has proved invaluable to the success of the project. One young man he was working with was interested in journalism, but needed to improve his literacy skills. However, Smart says prison staff had labelled him a trouble maker, therefore he was only allowed out of his cell to undertake cleaning duties. Smart was able to persuade the guards to let the young man attend literacy courses. He has left prison and is now attending college.

"On his risk assessment it said he was angry, violent and intimidating, but he was never like that to me," says Smart. "He isn't like that in the college he's in now. It was all just born out of frustration, but once we helped him realise his goals he was fine."

There are signs that other YOIs and prisons are also embracing the youth work approach. The YMCA's Barnes believes they're becoming more welcoming to youth workers, partly because they have been made to by the government.

"More money was made available so prisons were able to do more and see that the punishment is taking away their freedom and prison is about rehabilitation," she says. "You have to be able to release someone back into the community with adequate skills to get by."

'He was really there for me'

David (not his real name), 21, was released from prison a year ago after serving a three-year sentence for selling cocaine. Junior Smart, youth worker at the St Giles Trust's SOS Project, has worked with him before and after his release.

"My parents broke up when I was 15 and that's when things went wrong," says David. "There was no authority figure in my life because my dad left and it all broke down. I started selling about the age of 17."

He found life inside difficult and there was little emphasis on rehabilitation. "It's hard to get on courses in prison, they don't offer them to you, so it's up to you," he says. "There are people in there who haven't done anything for five or six years."

He credits Smart with turning his life around. He helped David find a place to stay when he was released and is helping him to stay straight.

David argues that there needs to be more support programmes such as SOS. "They just lock you up and leave you," says David. "Young people need to do something so at least you've got something when you come out and can get a job."

David now plans to follow in the footsteps of Smart and become a youth worker. "I want to do youth work. I've seen the effect it has and I want to make people feel the way he made me feel," he says. "Junior was really there for me."