A Royal appointment for prison partnership

Rachael El Weshahi, Stuart Jenkins and Anne Hanley with the Securing the future report

Staff from Belfield Sure Start Children’s Centre and HMP Buckley Hall were presented with a prestigious commendation from The Butler Trust last week by HRH The Princess Royal. They received the award in recognition of their outstanding work in supporting prisoners and their families.

Rachael El Weshahi from Belfield Children’s Centre and Stuart Jenkins from HMP Buckley Hall travelled to St James’s Palace to be honoured with the award on behalf of the project.

They were presented by HRH The Princess Royal, who is patron of the Trust. She spoke of the outstanding dedication that had been demonstrated to achieve the award.

Rachael El Weshahi Centre Leader from Rochdale Sure Start Children’s Centres said: “Receiving the Butler Award on behalf of the teams at Buckley Hall Prison, POPs, The Probation Service and my own staff at Belfield Children’s Centres was a real honour. I feel this reflects the hours of hard work that each partner has put in to make this project a success and have real, positive outcomes for families of offenders. We want to share our project with other children’s centres and prisons, so they might adapt it for their area. The conference was a fantastic opportunity to talk to staff from across the north west and ignite their interest in a similar partnership.”

Belfield Children’s Centre and Buckley Hall Prison, together with voluntary organisation POPS, Partners of Prisoners and Families Support Group have worked on an innovative partnership project to introduce family friendly visits at the prison. Qualified early years Sure Start staff have provided support to families who are visiting partners at Buckley Hall. Family friendly activities have included arts and crafts and other activities that focus on the family spending quality, constructive time together in what can be difficult circumstances. Families are also signposted to children’s centres and other support on offer to them in their local communities.

The Butler Trust Awards are the most sought after awards for people working in correctional settings in the U.K. Nominees must demonstrate dedication, skill, creativity and the recognition of significant benefit in the effective care of offenders, health and wellbeing of staff, public safety, and other public benefits.

This year the trust received 330 applications for the awards and the competition was as fierce as ever. Trustees granted only 23 commendations together with 11 awards. It follows on from the ‘Best Event Award’ which the partnership received last year at the Family Learning Festival.

The Rochdale partnership showcased this ground breaking work at a conference at the Broadfield Hotel last Friday. Over 100 delegates from children’s centres, prison services and probation services across the North West came together to understand how the project has worked in Rochdale and how other areas could take on a similar partnership.

The partnership used the opportunity to launch the report ‘Securing the Future’ which charts the journey of the project so far. A specially commissioned DVD will be shown at the event. It shows the story of a local family who have received support through this project whilst a family member was in prison. The DVD also gives testimonies from children’s centre, prison and probation staff who have been involved in the project and seen how families have benefited from the family friendly services.

Rochdale Sure Start Children’s Centres offer a full timetable of events for families with children aged 0 – 5 throughout the week.