What is the Prisons Scoping Project?
The project aims to improve the ability of the East of England prisons to develop a workforce that is able to operate in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment, and that can communicate effectively with overseas national prisoners.
Funded by the East of England Development Agency and regional Learning & Skills Council, the project was established to identify the key points of communication in the prisoner journey and the inherent barriers to communication between prisoners and staff, and to recommend how communications skills could be developed to further support the diversity training which staff receive.
BACKGROUND
The effective use of even a limited amount of a language can have a positive effect on prisoner relations. At a meeting of the Skills for Justice Employers’ Group in Cambridge in 2007 a number of justice organisations, including the police service, the DIP service, the probation service & the prison service, outlined the support they required in terms of language & culture skills & resource. This led to a further meeting focussed on staff involved with drugs & alcohol rehabilitation and custodial care in Norfolk, which paved the way for pilot language training in Portuguese for staff at Norwich prison and Polish training for Essex Police.
SURVEY
The series of interviews and observations within selected prisons identified that each prison found its own solution to handling communications with foreign nationals, and a number of resources had been developed to improve those communications. Most communication issues seem to arise with Vietnamese, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Polish & Lithuanian speakers. There is also a need for cultural awareness training and intercultural skills training in relation to these nationalities, as well as in relation to Nigerian & Jamaican behavioural culture.
PROJECT PHASES
Oversubscription to ESOL courses as well as difficulties of pre-ESOL prisoners possessing sufficient English to access enhanced thinking skills programmes was also an issue. Prisons welcomed the proposed development of a prison-specific ‘flip pack’ which could contain the key words staff are likely to use, particularly at key communication points such as reception, induction and custodial care interviews.
The project is divided into 4 phases. Phase 1 was to establish the framework of the project, including initial meetings with deputy governors and government & skills agencies to obtain the necessary approvals, and to identify & contact the prisons to be supported. Phase 2 was the visit to selected prisons on a pilot basis to survey prison & support staff and conduct observations through a series of half-day visits, culminating in the submission and discussion of a scoping report. Prisons involved in phase 2 were HMP Norwich, HMP Wayland, HMP The Mount, HMP Bullwood Hall, HMP Bedford and Peterborough Prison.
Phase 3 is the identification of potential sources of training funds and appropriate providers and the delivery of the pilot language & culture training sessions. Phase 4 is the roll-out of the support offer to all 15 East of England prisons where HMPS deems this most appropriate.
STAFF TRAINING
Following the submission of the scoping report, funding streams are being identified which could support the training to be given. This is forecast to be a mixture of existing and newly developed funds. Pilot sessions of small groups are to be run on prison premises to coincide with allocated training periods and prison operations.
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