The HMP Bullingdon Community Connections Pilot Project
Unusually, today’s post features a project with which I’ve been personally involved, undertaking a four year evaluation of the HMP Bullingdon Community Connections Pilot Project (BCCP). The project’s overall aim has been to build positive connections between the prison and the community that will support the rehabilitation of individuals. The project has two staff; a custody-based prison officer and a community worker based at Oxfordshire Council for Voluntary Action (OCVA) and they has succeeded in generating a huge amount of new activities.
The work of the project
BCCP has been successful in initiating over 40 initiatives and activities for people in Bullingdon prison. These range from small arts and crafts activities such as the fortnightly origami sessions held in the prison library and sports sessions designed to connect people in prison to their home communities to larger scale projects such as the painting of a 70 metre mural on a prison corridor (see the images in this post); new gardens where prisoners work regularly growing flowers and vegetable and a Departure Lounge which provides a range of practical services, information and support for prisoners on their day of release. This last initiative now helps more than half the people released from HMP Bullingdon in the first few hours of their resettlement journeys.
The extent of the activities delivered has grown consistently over the lifetime of the project and now averages about 300 hours of purposeful activity per month.
BCCP has also been successful in raising funds to support these activities, leveraging over £190,000 through a range of approaches.
Stakeholder views
More than forty individuals from a wide range of agencies were interviewed for the evaluation and they shared a common view that the project has been overwhelmingly successful. In particular, the pilot has:
- Substantially increased the range of support services available to prisoners at HMP Bullingdon.
- Engaged many more community organisations (of all sizes) in the work of the prison.
- Developed a network for community organisations wishing to provide services to people in prison.
- Improved the co-ordination of many key mechanisms and processes, particularly those focused on resettlement.
- Linked the prison more closely with the Oxfordshire community within which it sits.
- Leveraged additional funding and resources for a wide range of projects and services.
- Generated a feeling of positivity among prison staff and community organisations that it is possible to initiate and maintain a range of positive activities within HMP Bullingdon.
That the project has succeeded in achieving this range of outcomes during a period in which both HMP Bullingdon and the entire prison system has been under-resourced and has faced continuously growing demands is remarkable to say the least. The prison itself has been so pleased with the project that it is in the process of taking over responsibility for funding the prison-based worker from November 2026.
Replication
One of the aspirations for the Community Connections project was always to test and prove an effective concept for enhancing the involvement of community organisations in prisoners’ resettlement journeys (both while incarcerated and on release). The current model has been tried and tested over a four year period and has succeeded in becoming such an integral part of the prison regime that successive governors at HMP Bullingdon have committed to fund the prison-based worker out of their own budgets going forward.
There has also been considerable interest from both the central and regional management of HMPPS and a number of individual prison establishments.
It was the conclusion of all partners (and myself as evaluator) that the impact of the project is to a large extent attributable to the fact that it has been owned by the prison from the start and that it has been co-created to meet the particular needs of HMP Bullingdon and has evolved to address new challenges such as the large remand population.
There is also a strong consensus that a formal centralised HMPPS-imposed model is unlikely to have the same level of success and that individual establishments should build on the core principles of the model to develop an approach that works for their institution.
There, is of course, another aspect to a successful partnership delivering a prison community connections which is to find a suitable voluntary sector infrastructure organisation to host the community component and facilitate access to a wide range of community organisations and administer a community fund to encourage participation. These sorts of organisation, like the vast majority of charities, have also found it increasingly difficult to source funding since the “austerity years” started and it is important to ensure that their costs are met in any funding bid. If not, some infrastructure organisations may be reluctant to take up a formal role in managing and supporting a community connections project.
In order to support any prisons wishing to develop their own community connections initiative, the evaluation report includes a short guide of key learning points which I’ve reproduced below.
Key learning points for developing a prison community connections project
Pre-Launch
- Invest in a full-time officer who will not be asked to cover other duties.
- A uniformed officer will be best place to navigate prison systems, understand security protocols etc.
- Recruit someone who wants the job and has good interpersonal skills.
- Before launch, develop a partnership with a key local voluntary sector infrastructure group which is a hub for local charities.
- Create a small pot of money so providers/volunteers travel expenses can be met.
Initial phase
- Worker to split working week between prison and community. It’s important to be visible in the establishment and to go and talk in person with voluntary sector providers to build relationships.
- Research HMPPS and voluntary sector potential funding pots. Even small amounts of funding can facilitate the delivery of much provision.
- Talk to colleagues about possible venues for provision (library, gym and any spaces which are sometimes unused).
- Ask people in prison what they want or need, try out ideas with them first and recruit redbands/orderlies/peer workers & mentors to support.
Early delivery
- Work may need to be hands on and pro-active in facilitating security approval, collect providers from gate, key training, being present during session. (Look to pass on these duties at later stages to create time to develop new activities).
- Consider holding a community fair inviting in lots of charities to a half day at the prison to build their confidence at working within prison walls and raise profile of the project.
- Ask early providers for ideas for others, encourage them to suggest ideas and develop partnerships.
Ongoing delivery
Stay positive, persevere, some ultimately very successful projects take a long time to get off the ground, plant many seeds in the knowledge that not all will come to fruition. The more activities that happen, the more colleagues will support and get involved.
Key points for providers
- Be patient and persevere, be happy with little wins. It takes time to win trust.
- Allow 45 minutes between arrival and session start. Check you had your ID and the prison worker’s number before leaving. Remember you can’t take your phone in, so download anything you need beforehand.
- Be flexible, no day is predictable in prison.
- Go in with an open mind, talk to prisoners like anyone else, try not to judge and don’t ask about people’s offences.
- Remember that not everyone can read and write easily and not everyone’s first language is English.
- Get ideas from prisoners for future sessions.
- Remember that prison regimes are very limited at the moment, your contribution is bound to be appreciated.
You can find the link to the evaluation report and a summary on this OCVA page (just scroll to the bottom).
