We were pleased to take part in the Celebration of Success Event at HMP Nottingham, celebrating the graduates of Beyond Recovery who are learning the mind skills to turn their lives around and other participants who had shown bravery and courage.  Each event included an inspirational guest speaker and we were delighted to have our Apprentices, Alfie Chambers & David Saunders take the spotlight.

The PR on the prison intranet goes as follows:

“Wednesday 7th August 2019 saw the second celebration of success event at HMP Nottingham. The first event was held in June to celebrate the first cohort of graduates from our flagship Beyond Recovery intervention which is delivered on our ISFL unit on D wing.

The ISFL opened in May this year and is the largest of the 10PP units with, on average, 115 prisoners on compacts and a maximum role of 145 prisoners.

The unit offers a number of other initiatives: music club, guitar lessons, Pillars of Recovery, one to one support, and will soon be introducing: on-wing fitness sessions, art classes, and a wing café to promote community living. As with most ISFL’s undertaking CBDT testing has been a challenge but we continue to do this and look for more innovative ways of building it into the regime.

Beyond Recovery (BR) is a fairly new initiative to the prison service, having started at HMP Onley and then joining us in Nottingham in March 2019 to assist in development of the ISFL wing. Indeed the celebration of success event was inspired by the BR team wanting to hold an awards ceremony for the BR graduates. However, this event grew into a prison wide approach and included prisoners who had achieved other successes (Pillars of Recovery, Graduates of Byron Unit and on two occasions prisoners who came to the aid of staff).

Given the significant impact that families can have to assist in reducing reoffending, we use these events to bring families in to share in the family members achievements.

The Governor presented the awards at both events.

Each event included an inspirational speaker who was an ex-offender that had previously graduated the Beyond Recovery Apprentice Programme. Both speakers had a motivational impact on the men attending the event.

The Governor said “as Lord Farmer noted, ‘Families are the golden thread’ and therefore I was thrilled to celebrate the graduation of our Beyond Recovery Programme with their families and significant others.   For many, this was the first time that they’d seen their loved ones achieve anything thus giving hope that there is an opportunity beyond the walls to stop offending.” “