The Inside Stories project matches artists with prisoners. Together, they write and illustrate stories that help dads maintain relationships with their children on the outside
There are 82,305 men in prison in the UK, but it’s not only those behind bars who are forced to serve a sentence of absence from their families.
These men are fathers to an estimated 200,000 children and, with phone calls limited and visits closely monitored, forging a bond with their children as they grow up is a huge – and hugely emotional – challenge.Enter the Inside Stories project, by charity Create. It helps prisoners aged between 18 and 25 to connect with their children by working with writers, artists and musicians to create original illustrated storybooks and CDs.
Give stories, not stuff
Groups of up to eight prisoners work for 12 days in pairs to write, illustrate and record their stories, helped by skilled professional artists. The project culminates in a celebratory family visit day at which the stories are performed to music. Each child receives a copy of the book his or her father has created, along with a recording on CD, allowing them to hear their father’s voice. Princesses and animals are common characters.
“The children are hugely important in all of this, and I think they’re often forgotten,” says Nicky Goulder, Create’s co-founder and chief executive.
“Children who have a parent in prison are massively stigmatised – lots of them suffer bullying, and it triples the chance of them displaying antisocial behaviour themselves.
That’s why this project is unbelievably important. We know that 38 per cent of young offenders reoffend within 12 months of being released,” says Goulder, “so developing programmes that can help to reduce reoffending – which costs between £9.5bn and £13bn a year – seemed like a good thing to do.”The children are hugely important in all of this, and I think they’re often forgotten
The project is…
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