Report on Reading Dads Promotion at Leicester Prison

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Report on Reading Dads Promotion

at Leicester Prison

0th - 21st July 2006

Contents

Page Number

3. Introduction

4. The Activities

5. The Delivery Areas

6. Session Evaluation and Feedback

8. General Observations

8. Conclusion

Introduction

During July, HMP Leicester, HMYOI Glen Parva and Leicestershire County Council and other agencies worked together to encourage prisoners to read with their children by running a fortnight of events aimed at helping raising awareness of the importance of reading to Children.

Many of the prisoners were not read to when they were children; which means they do not understand the pleasure a child can gain from having a story read to them, this pleasure can help the child to develop a reading habit which remains with them for life. Reading is a fundamental activity which helps build skills and also enriches the relationship between parent and child.

It can be difficult for Prisoners to maintain a relationship with their child when they are in prison. It is hoped that this fortnight will help to improve the prisoner's confidence when dealing with their children. Staff will be giving the prisoners children Book Start packs when they come to visit. These packs contain books, crayons and colouring book. The Book Start packs are intended to give the child a head start with their reading.

The Prison Libraries also ran a bookmark competition, the winning design to be published and available in the Leicestershire County Council Libraries.

The libraries introduced the opportunity for prisoners whose families live within Leicestershire to reserve a book for their child to borrow in a public library. The Father can then read the same book as the child and they can share the enjoyment of reading with each other. This scheme is currently under development and we hope to have it in place by September. By inserting a County Libraries membership form into each Bookstart pack the Library aimed to promote membership to those in the Leicestershire area. The pack also included a list of web links for Libraries Authorities in other areas in the hopes of encouraging out-of-area families to join their local Library.

The Reading Dads promotion successfully delivered a wide range of Family Learning Activities to prisoners in the Learning and Skills department, the STORM Unit (Short Term Offender Rehabilitation Management Unit) and also the Detox unit.

The Activities

Story reading workshops - delivered in conjunction with Leicestershire County Council Community Outreach Workers. These workshops aimed to encourage fathers to read to their children in a number of different ways. We explored the art of telling stories, books without words and story telling with props. The nature of these workshops ensured that all ability levels were able to contribute to the workshop.

Poetry writing workshops - delivered in conjunction with Leicestershire County Libraries Literature Development Officer. These workshops explored children's poetry and demonstrated easy methods for participants to create their own poems. Workshops assumed a certain level of literacy but all learners were supported if required.
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Traditional Asian Children's Stories - delivered in conjunction with Leicester shire County Council Cultural development Officer. This workshop aimed to share traditional Asian stories in both Hindi and English. Due to the transient prison population there were no Hindi speakers involved in the workshop but the session was conducted in English only with great success. The session also explored quick methods of generating stories for children.

Cartooning workshops - delivered by commercial Illustrator, Clive Francis and funded by the Read On Write Away organisation. Clive delivered several two hour sessions in which he helped participants to develop ...

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