HMP Blakenhurst
Prison Dialogue was commissioned by the then governor Peter Siddons to introduce dialogue work into HMP Blakenhurst. This provided purposeful activity for a large number of prisoners who were not held in the local prison long enough to benefit from accredited prison-run courses. The dialogue ran for two consecutive days each month and involved 20 prisoners with 2 or 3 uniformed staff and a senior manager from the prison. The senior managers attended just one day, and they were on a rota so that each of them joined a dialogue group twice a year. The conversations were facilitated by Prison Dialogue with an open agenda. Prison issues such as security and food were often aired along with resettlement needs such as employment, housing and family relationships. When the prison reverted to being run by HM Prison Service staff levels were cut significantly and interaction between staff and prisoners was curtailed. We tried running half day dialogues each week for a period but chose to stop because we lacked the level of staff involvement we thought was necessary for the health of the conversations.
Other developments in the prison were dialogues specifically for the vulnerable prisoner group on Houseblock 5, and Healthcare Dialogues.
Further details will be posted in due course.
Back to Prison Contracts