Family learning tutor Sam Hart describes some ingenious ways in which dads in prison can be reading role models and support their children’s education.
A year ago I found myself facing a class of eight dads determined to get involved in their kids’ education. The dads in question were prisoners at HMP Blantyre House – a resettlement prison in rural Kent.
Many of these men were worried about their children’s progress at school – and these fears were not unfounded. Research shows that children with a prisoner in the family are at risk of bullying, low self-esteem and educational failure.
As I was new to family learning, and relatively new to prisons, I started trawling the internet for ideas and resources. I quickly discovered that many suggestions for engaging dads in kids’ literacy were next to useless in a prison setting. The dads could not, for example, encourage their kids to read road signs or labels in supermarkets. Nor could they visit libraries, bookshops and newsagents together. Popping into school for parents’ evenings or to admire wall displays was similarly out of the question.
A little lateral thinking was required. Over the next year, with tremendous support from Head of Learning and Skills Debbie Leach, the learners and I worked hard to develop different ways of helping them help their kids. Family learning sessions were spent choosing and recording bedtime stories for their children through the Storybook Dads scheme. The dads also made personalised story sacks for their kids, complete with hand-made educational games.
Some learners created Daddy’s Day books. These books – the brainchild of Blantyre prisoner Clinton, who came up with the idea after his six-year-old son sent him a picture portfolio of his day at school – are photo journals of a dad’s day in prison and consist of pictures, poems, letters and certificates. Prison can be a frightening concept for some children and the idea of Daddy’s Day is to reassure them that their dads are safe and carrying on with life as ‘normally’ as possible. They also include photos of the dads as reading role models – flicking through papers or reading books in the library. Several of the men have been nominated for Reading Champion awards due to their efforts.
These courses have culminated in special themed family learning days, in which children are invited in to the prison. Themes have included the Wild West, Halloween, Animals and Food and Growing. These days are meticulously prepared by the dads and involve treasure hunts, games, gym activities, word searches and craft activities. On one occasion, both the kids and dads planted a sunflower seed and were encouraged to have a ‘sunflower race’ – each recording their flower’s growth on a special chart and exchanging pictures and letters about its progress.
The librarian runs story time sessions and a local bookshop has kindly agreed to lend us a large selection of books so that the children and dads can choose a book together. Our next project is to make the visits hall a literacy-rich environment, by encouraging the children to produce poems, stories and pictures to go on the wall. Being a ‘reading dad’ in prison isn’t easy – but the learners at Blantyre have proved it is certainly possible.
“It was great to see what [my son] had been up to so I thought I could do a similar book for him. At Blantyre House we are including pictures of us reading in the library, eating healthy foods, studying and working, so we can show a good example even though we are in prison.” (Clinton - prisoner)
This case study is taken from Getting the Blokes on Board (NLT, 2007)
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