Many aspects of prison life can complicate
efforts to encourage prisoners to read for pleasure and
support their children's reading. Sue Wilkinson, librarian
at HMP Birmingham, describes how they overcame some of the
obstacles.
When HMP Birmingham was selected to be part of a pilot
family reading project, this was new territory for us. Although
we were keen on the idea, the logistics of delivering a
family-based project in a large, busy local prison were
daunting. The prison is not geared to family visits, with
no comfortable seating or area where parents and children
can read together.
However, the success of a story area at the prison's first
ever family day got us thinking about how we could get the
men engaged with reading to their children. When the opportunity
came to take part in the Got
kids? Get reading! pilot, testing the effectiveness
of new family reading resources and book collections, it
seemed almost too good to be true.
Becoming family reading-friendly
One of the most important aspects of the project was to
link the various agencies involved in family reading. With
support from Birmingham Libraries' Children's Team, we devised
an ambitious programme involving the prison library, the
prison education department, the Visitor's Centre and Words
on Wheels (a mobile library catering specifically for under-fives).
The aim was to link families through reading and help adults
to improve their literacy skills. We organised five visits
to the Visitor's Centre from Words on Wheels, and arranged
sessions with groups of dads in the prison library, using
the project's collection of adults' and children's books.
As with any project in a prison, security was paramount.
Our first problem was where to park a very large mobile
library so that it was close enough to the Visitors' Centre.
After much delicate negotiation, we were given permission
to park at the entrance to the car park, where people could
drop in either before or after their visit to look at the
range of stock.
During a one-off session with a group of regular library
users, we focused on reading with their children. The men
came up with lots of ideas for ways to share books with
their children during their time inside. One is writing
a story for his child and sending an instalment in each
of his letters; another is making time during phone calls
to ask his children about what they are reading. A third
now asks the library to get him the same books as his children
are reading, so that he can talk to them about the content.
Building confidence
Library sessions were also run as part of the Family Man
course being delivered by the education department at the
same time. In the first session we talked about books, reading
and libraries. Out of the 12 men taking part, only one had
used a library before coming to prison. We helped them choose
a suitable book to take away to read, and the tutor very
helpfully built some reading time into the course.
The second session focused on reading to children and sharing
books. Only one of the men remembered having books at home
when he was a child - the same man who had used libraries
before coming to prison. Most of the men could remember
being read to at school, but none had ever read to their
own children.
We asked them to think about the benefits to children of
being read to, and talked about what makes a good story
for a child. One of the library staff read a story as if
she was reading it to a group of children, which initially
caused embarrassment among the men. However, they soon joined
in and two of them volunteered to give very entertaining
renditions of What's the Time,
Mr Wolf? and There's a Monster
Under My Bed.
A third session was planned to pull everything together.
However, things in prison rarely go to plan, and operational
difficulties meant this session had to be cancelled. This
is something that you get used to in prisons. Fortunately,
the prisoners are aware of this and usually take these things
in their stride.
Despite the setbacks, all the men felt it was a very positive
experience and several have become regular library users.
They each said they intend to read with their children when
they get out. Overall the feedback was very positive, as
the comment of one participant shows:
"I found the library staff much more
approachable for someone like me who can't read very well.
They don't judge you, and it's much less stressful - I don't
feel threatened in the library."
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