Tag: university

Why a university education has been a win-win for me

Author: | 19 Apr 2023

David is a psychology student at an East of England university. He left school with no qualifications and has had to work hard to get on the course, and stay on it, but now having passed the half-way point he feels, he writes, that he finally has a voice.

It wasn’t easy going into higher education when I left prison. I had got no GCSEs at school and had been in and out of prison most of my life, working on building sites in-between sentences. Then one day I decided I no longer wanted to plaster walls for a living. I wanted to go to university.

I started by attending night school to make good that lack of GCSEs.  That was hard work. The classroom and academia were all new to me. Yet somehow I have made it happen. Going forward, the support I have been given by family, friends, and the Longford Trust has been incredible. I look back and realise that there are so many talented people locked in prison cells who aren’t even aware they can start out on this journey of improving themselves.

Looking afresh at the world

What I want to say to them in this blog is that this path I have taken has already demonstrated to me many of the benefits of a degree. It has, for a start, completely changed my outlook on society. Education has been a win-win for me, helping me to better understand the world around me, and equipping me to make better decisions.

I chose to study psychology because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others. What I have found out is that what we know about the human psyche is quite dated and poorly understood. Yet the human mind is so fascinating, it is surprising that as a species we know so little about it.

More motivation than intellect

My motivation, to be clear, far out weighs my intellect, but one of the benefits of prison life is that it made me a resilient and resourceful human being. That and the fact that I actually want to learn and better myself as I have had enough of repeating old patterns. So, I focus on the day in hand and get the task done.

When I finally get this degree, and can throw my hat in the air like all the other students, I will feel so proud of myself. And I hope in a small way I will be a living example, not only to others who have walked the same path as me into prison, but more importantly to my children who have witnessed my lifelong struggles with addiction and crime.

Now I can hold my own

Coming from a marginalised background it was like I never had a voice. All I ever had were middle-class barristers, solicitors, probation officers and drug and social workers talking at me. But now I feel I can hold my own. My vocabulary has broadened so I can articulate what it is I need to say. Yet, as I regularly tell myself, “I have not come this far just to come this far”.

If you feel inspired by David’s story to find out about going to university, contact Clare Lewis, the Longford Trust’s scholarship manager, or write to her at Freepost, Longford Trust. You don’t need to put a stamp on it.

Pausing to reflect on how far I’ve come

Author: | 17 Dec 2021

For many this is a time of year to take stock, looking back on the year behind us. 2021 has, perhaps, invited more reflection than ever. 

As a charity promoting second chances for people in and after prison, we too have reflected that supporting Longford scholars into career opportunities is something we have a part to play in. For almost a year, a pilot employability programme has been running alongside our scholarship programme. 

Molly took on a new role through the employability pilot. Here, for Longford Blog she reflects on what she’s learnt….

The circumstances that led me to spend a year in prison are undoubtedly the worst thing to have happened to me and my family. With my mind and body in survival mode, I don’t have clear memories of my time inside. However, in my last days there, I remember vividly one of my closest friends saying, ‘Molly, when you leave don’t look back.’ She wasn’t being metaphoric, she was deadly serious. ‘Walk out of the gates and do not turn around.’

I followed her instructions to the T. I was released in the April and, with Longford’s support, hurried straight to Cardiff Metropolitan University in the September. I joined the equestrian team and swiftly took over as president, I worked as a student ambassador, became a student representative, completed 100 hours of work experience as part of the Cardiff Met Award, coached gymnastics, athletics, rugby and cricket, and started the CoppaFeel!: Uni Boob Team society… The aim was to place as much distance between myself and HMP Eastwood Park as possible with the hope of making my CV look good despite my conviction.

Focusing on proving myself outside of academic study by cramming distracting activities into my schedule was overwhelming. Balancing these commitments, alongside the mental health issues and trauma of being fresh out of prison led me to overlook my degree. Nevertheless, I managed to scrape a 2:1 in 2019!

Back on track

After graduating, I found a good job with good people who didn’t care about my past. Over the next couple years, I made Cardiff my home and settled into a comfortable position. More recently, I started my own freelance venture. Life is back on track. Except this summer, two years post-graduation, having worked tirelessly to put distance between my new life and my experiences, I found myself carrying around an unbearable guilt. Guilt for succeeding and leaving the people in prison behind.

If I wanted to make the feeling go away, I had to do something about it. I got back in touch with Longford in October and explained the situation….

‘I want to give back.’

When they offered to put me in touch with StandOut, who happened to be recruiting, ultimately I knew, despite the fear, that I couldn’t turn this opportunity down. Luckily, the role suited me perfectly; working part time meant I can confidently develop my freelance social media management services with the comfort of a stable income. Not to mention, resolving my desire to give back.

It all happened so quickly, I’m still confused by it. I spent the best part of 6 years trying to move on from prison and now I’m working in an organisation that challenges me to confront a lot of underlying emotions and internalised stigma about prisons every day. Whilst inside, I was aware of a handful of organisations who visited people in prison, but I never understood how dedicated such organisations are to supporting people to create a better life upon release. Whilst it’s frustrating that the current system requires organisations like StandOut to exist in the first place, it’s fascinating to learn more about the sector as a whole.

Now here I am, just over a month into my role at StandOut, feeling so grateful for the opportunity to work with a first class and committed team who work together to put people first. With their support, day- to- day I plan communications and support fundraising. Feedback from my new colleagues has assured me that I’m doing a good job! As a team, we have just completed a massive campaign for The Big Give Christmas Challenge where we smashed our initial target by 50% and raised over £90,000.

How far I’ve come

Whilst building my way up towards a wonderful job, growing a freelance venture, new home and beautiful family, not stopping to look back felt right. However, now knowing that I want to and can give back, a period of reflection is necessary. Although it’s not always easy, pausing to look back has allowed me to see how far I’ve come.

If you want to apply to become a Longford scholar to study a university degree in prison or after prison, you can apply here. 

Scholarship Application

We need more lived experience leaders in the justice system…like you!

Author: | 21 May 2021

CJ Burge has recently been appointed a new Trustee of the Longford Trust, alongside another former scholar. Here the First class degree graduate reflects on her journey from prison to boardroom, offering hope and advice to other upcoming leaders who have personal experience of prison.

 

 

I was bowled over when I got the call from the Longford Trust’s Chair to say that they would be delighted to have me as a Trustee on their Board. I was thinking “I’m the one who’s delighted, humbled, elated….!”

You see, even now, years on from my release from prison, I still suffer from impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is the feeling that I shouldn’t be where I am, doing the things I’m doing: sitting amongst these professionals; leading this partnership meeting; speaking on a podium to a national conference of experts; being asked for my perspective by senior government officials, and the list goes on….Impostor syndrome in this context is institutionalisation’s best friend, waiting to confront you as you leave the prison gates, hiding in your shadow as you stride forward into your new life. Although it has never quite gone away, I’ve learnt to live with it, and I’ve found that over the years, the more I’ve challenged myself to do new things, and be in new settings (that quite frankly have filled me with trepidation), the more I’ve conquered and silenced my unwelcome friend from prison.

If you’d have asked me 7 years ago, when I started my degree in prison, whether I’d be where I am today – Trustee of two remarkable charities, and a National Service Manager at another – I’d have smiled at you in incredulity and utter disbelief.

Incarceration and the prison system are far from the vessels of hope and transformation they really should be in a progressive 21st century society like ours.

Reflecting on what has got me here and how it has been possible, I’ve boiled it down to a combination of actions, mindsets and opportunities that have accelerated my path to being in leadership positions, just four years out of prison.

 

Actions

The one thing I knew for sure in prison was that I needed to re-educate myself. If I was going to go anywhere or do anything of significance, I needed to use the thousands of hours at my disposal to better myself as a human being, so that one day I could effectively give back to the community I would be re-entering. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship through the Longford Trust to study Law, and with that came an amazing mentor who encouraged, inspired and challenged me, in equal measures. At the end of my degree, the opportunity to do a placement at the Cabinet Office arose, again through the Trust, and this short immersion in all things government and policy lifted the lid on what I thought was possible. It enabled me to dream the dream, that people like us could one day be in positions like those, not just as some summer intern, or token achiever, but for the knowledge, skills and much-needed lived experiences that we bring of the criminal justice services and social systems that see people at their lowest, most vulnerable state, and in much need of help.

 

Mindsets

The number one mantra for me has been to embrace challenge positively. I’ve known all along my journey, from 9 months’ solitary confinement in a Japanese prison, to having my daughter taken away from me at birth, to speaking in front of hundreds at a Longford Lecture or even delivering the first TEDx talk in a prison in the UK, that this would be hard, well more than hard, potentially soul-destroying if I allowed it to be. Very early on I had to come to terms with my actions that had led me to where I was and the hurt that I had caused others. I made a decision that this wasn’t the end, that no matter what, I could turn it around and, though now through a more colourful path, still fulfil my life’s ambitions to help others. Notice I said embrace challenge positively? Well positivity and gratitude are the two other mindsets that have smoothed the rocky landscapes that I have traversed. Without these I would have probably been bailing out of every challenge that came my way, but it was the positive thinking and the gratitude that kept me both buoyant and grounded, at the same time.

Opportunities

The very definition of opportunity, a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something, may have you believe that you need to wait for those sets of circumstances to arise before you can even get a whiff of an opportunity. I see it a bit differently though, that we can engender the right circumstances by preparing and getting ourselves in a position to have opportunities line up at our door.

In my case it started with volunteering I undertook a qualification in prison delivered by St Giles in Information, Advice & Guidance, and became one of their Peer Advisors, supporting women in prison with resettlement issues. A bit later I volunteered whilst on day release (or ‘RoTL’ as it’s known) in the community in the St Giles’ Peer Advisor Contact Centre. I also secured a volunteer placement at the Southwark Law Centre.

Volunteering gave me the skills and knowledge to apply more confidently for jobs, and fortunately I secured a paid role coordinating for the award-winning educational and preventative SOS+ Service at St Giles. I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I was when I landed the job, it reduced me to tears knowing that someone out there valued me enough to pay for my contributions. Volunteering gave me a steady foundation, a base to jump off from, but that first job, being paid for the hard work I was putting in, that cemented and deep-rooted a new sense of self-worth, identity and value.

I am passionate about rehabilitation and second chances, which is why everything that the Longford Trust does resonates with me. For the last five years I have given my absolute all to developing a service that champions the potential of people with lived experiences of the criminal justice system, by providing opportunities to learn and develop skills that lead to sustainable career prospects. I am a staunch advocate for meaningful opportunities for people who leave prison, having seen first-hand the multitude of barriers for those with convictions, and the incredibly difficult circumstances many who find themselves in prison have faced. As a Trustee of the Criminal Justice Alliance (‘CJA’), I chair their Lived Experience Expert Group that meets quarterly to bring together CJA members to provide advice, support and expertise to our work on lived experience and improving the diversity of the criminal justice workforce to include, at all levels, those with lived experiences.

We need more employers and organisations in the justice sector to recognise, value, include and recruit into leadership and influencing roles people with lived experiences of the criminal justice system,

if we are “to (re)build a system that learns from those with crucial insights into the challenges that undermine the system’s key objectives” (Change from Within, CJA report 2019). Moreover, the benefits of having lived experience on non-profit boards are numerous: from “improving the quality of evidence based decision making”, to providing “credibility, legitimacy, efficiency, effectiveness,… authentic representation and a better understanding” to the issues in need of tackling, as academics from Cass Business School have found.

I am really glad to see incremental positive changes taking place across our sector with trailblazing charities, like the Longford Trust, leading the way by walking the talk and valuing lived experience. I end this blog echoing the Change from Within report’s call to action to the whole criminal justice sector, including public and private sector agencies, to recognise, celebrate and invest in people with lived experience. Whilst also encouraging all my peers to continue to welcome challenge positively, to believe in the value of and to harness their lived experiences, and always, always to aim high!

 

 

 

 

Opening doors is key to success: an expert’s view

Author: | 19 Jun 2020

You may have a first-class degree and a brilliant business idea, but doors can remain firmly shut if you are not “the right sort” 

In an increasingly competitive jobs market, the Longford Trust is offering additional employment support and training to Longford scholars to turn their university degrees into successful careers.

Mark Neild is a Longford Trust Mentor and lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at Bristol University who has been advising our scholars. Here he writes for Longford Blog: 

It is curious that something we cannot see, touch or smell has such a huge impact on our life chances.

Social Capital refers to the resources available to people due to the connections and relationships they have.  It was popularised by the French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu who described 3 types of capital: economic, cultural and social.

Raising capital: hard with a poor credit rating

Economic capital we can all understand – in simple terms it determines our ability to buy resources.  It can be really important for those starting a business for, as the old truism goes, it is easy to raise money for a venture if you don’t need it.  For Longford Scholars, and others trying to start businesses without wealthy friends and family, they do need capital. And raising capital is doubly hard if you have black marks on your credit history.

Of course, it’s your fault if a repayment fails because the previous day a Proceeds of Crime order emptied your bank account, or if you failed to redirect your mail when you were sentenced, and are therefore denied any recourse in the County Court.  Even various charities that purport to include ex-offenders among the people they fund seem to find excuses not to support entirely plausible plans for sustainable businesses from them.

But there is good news….. 

If you look around there is support for talented business-minded people to avoid the degrading and discriminatory rituals often associated with gaining regular employment. Phoenix is a programme that works with ex-offenders to make the most of their skills to sell directly to customers. The “secret weapon” behind the programme is innovation.  We may not be able to magic up money, but we can show you how to avoid needing it.

How does that work? Well, here’s how. Much like crowd-funding, you dangle a particularly enticing proposition and show prospective partners how, with a bit of faith and investment in kind, that proposition can be realised. It is amazing how doors can open.

One Scholar’s success story

Take the first Scholar we worked with on our programme. Faced with his second institutional funding rejection, we helped him to develop a business idea that needed less capital.  By partnering with an existing landlord, he showed how the property could make more money by setting up as a halfway house for ex-offenders. And, hey presto, the landlord funded conversion works while our Scholar brought in the business. Now they both earn nicely.

But Social Capital is a different beast.  You may have a first-class degree and a brilliant business idea, but institutional doors still remain firmly shut if you are not “the right sort”.  This can be particularly problematic if your business sells to big organisations because, no matter how great your product, if you can’t pitch it nobody will ever know how great it is.  It is not that big institutions are particularly discriminatory (although, of course, some are), it is more that they are fundamentally risk averse and so struggle with ideas that originate outside their collective world view, or outside the social and cultural bubble that invisibly shapes the way they think – a point made very well by Ross Baird in his recent book, Innovation Blind Spot.

The sad truth is that procurement practice favours big companies with the resources to answer lengthy, complicated questionnaires asking about risk-management processes that, frankly, have no bearing on the quality of services delivered.  Even I, who have negotiated £billion contracts for government departments, found working through the labyrinth of the government’s new “simplified” buying process. It is a daunting and time-consuming process.  And, truth be told, unless you have the social capital to show the commissioners “what good really looks like”, they will never know and continue procuring the “same old, lame old” things.

But, hell, one of the biggest reasons for becoming an entrepreneur is to flout convention.  If a product really is better, we WILL find a way of bringing it to market.  And I am delighted to say that the Longford Trust is playing its part.  Among the current cohort of our Phoenix programme participants, we can count for four Longford Scholars, thanks in large part to Jacob, who runs the trust’s e-community app for its past and present award-holders.

Rehabilitation: ‘walking the walk’

What is particularly innovative is that each Scholar has a business idea that will improve the experience of ex-offenders in transitioning back into society.  They have been through it, so have first-hand knowledge of what needs to change, as well as the credibility with “service users” to bring about real and lasting change.

Being able to articulate persuasively the benefits of their approach is an essential part of the package. And that’s what we at Phoenix have been helping the Scholars with. It goes without saying that they need to show they don’t just have the ‘talk’, but can ‘walk the walk’. In other words, they can put in place the right systems and processes to make their vision happen.  None of this means anything, though, unless they can open the doors to the relevant commissioners.

This is where the wider Longford Trust community comes in.

Every year at the Longford Lecture hundreds of rehabilitation champions come together to celebrate talent, penal reform and second chances. Hundreds of people, many with extraordinary connections and experience in industry, business and entrepreneurialism, are united in a warm glow of good will, and ask, what can we do to help? So many Scholars have the ideas, the educational qualifications and the first-hand experience to build successful rehabilitation services. Here’s my suggestion: if you are able to open one door for one of them, please do. They might make a better job of rehabilitation than the politicians have recently!

Who knows whether it will work but, as we say to successive cohorts, the only failure is failure to try.