If you have done well in business, care about the communities that you serve and want to give back, we would like to talk to you about reciprocal mentoring with a prison governor.
• Be Of Service: Give time and share experiences in the service of others
• Up Your Game: Professional coaching with a difference and a 20 year proven track record
• Refine Your Skills: Collaboration, mentoring, building relationships
• Open Your Mind: Challenge what you believe about yourself, others and the world around you
• Do It Now: There is a gap and an urgent need that you can help fill
Mission
Suspend what you think you believe about crime and punishment.
There are currently around 90,000 people – men, women, young people and children – behind bars in this country and most of them will be released. This means that some of them may be coming to a community near you.
So what do you want?
You want them to be playing by the same rules as you do.
Which means prison also needs to be a place where people are offered a second chance and help they need to successfully rehabilitate to become a force for good back in their community.
This is a tough mission and under Covid19 it just got tougher.
Problem
Prisons have been in lockdown since mid-March with men and women confined to cells for up to 23 hours a day. This strategy has been successful in keeping deaths from Covid19 much lower than Public Health England predicted but at a human health cost that is only now starting to emerge. Prisons are only now starting to loosen some of their lockdown restrictions – while society in general is much further ahead – and the process for prisons is unlikely to happen in a straight line.
All networking and professional and personal development opportunities for prisons governors – the CEO - has stopped at a time when their already tough mission just got harder. Bringing their people – and the affected families - with them safely through and out of extraordinary measures into whatever a ‘new normal’ will be has potential to be a matter of life and death. Additional support has gone to front line staff and those serving sentences while governors have remained isolated. Meanwhile scrutiny and control from government has increased.
Prison Service culture is historically risk-averse, male-dominated and insular: Asking for help, thinking outside the sector ‘box’ and taking charge of your own professional development is an exemption from the norm. Exemptions do exist – but they are swimming against the tide.
The time is now: Many in the sector believe that as prisons emerge for the first time from lockdown restrictions that the hard work is only just beginning. Controlling infection of a high-risk population by isolation was simple and effective – re-starting rehabilitation activities in a new controlled environment is a new and much bigger ask of the people making the key decisions on the ground.
Solution
We have been refining an online led process that brings three prison governors together on Zoom for specific coaching-mentoring-training. The process has been designed to be deliberately different to anything previously available to them in-house – so as to facilitate breakthrough – and specific to the challenge of thinking and operating differently in order to lead their people and prison through the challenge of Covid19.
Our next level of development is Reciprocal Mentoring: Partner a prison governor with a senior leader from the corporate world and have them supporting and learning from each other on Zoom with us.
Scope
We started in working with our first three governors in May - this grew by word of mouth to eight in July and we will add another two this month with four more waiting. There are 117 prisons in England & Wales.
Find Out More
Read about the prison work
https://www.bigandscaryrunning.com/blog/4584755693/A-Glimpse-Of-The-Real-Inside/11437358
Read about the work with prison governors
https://www.bigandscaryrunning.com/blog/4584755693/RFYL-Rising/11457337
Read more about the challenges the sector is facing with Covid19
https://www.clinks.org/community/blog-posts/leaving-prison-pandemic-how-services-are-responding
What Is On Offer
This is a professional service: The fee paid by the corporate sector will pay for in whole or part the work in the criminal justice sector.
There will be a selection process: We will work with you to mix and match and put measures in place.
There will be rules: Our expectations of you will be high and explicit because this is sensitive work. There will be things you/we cannot do/say and we will make an agreement with you to this effect.
Your package is bespoke: A combination of Andy’s services for you and your people or just the reciprocal mentoring with a prison governor over your choice timescale.
Total commitment: The stakes are about as high as they can be for a prison governor right now. You need to match their commitment at 100%. This opportunity is not for anyone – but if you believe it could be for you and some of your people please contact me andy@doingbigandscary.com 07799 063 115
Thank you
