The Locked up Living Podcast: Surviving and thriving in prisons and other challenging environments

43. Simon Partridge, Upper class parenting trauma and Boarding school syndrome and the impact on the UK

Simon Partridge describes himself as a disillusioned ex-analysand. He is a great thinker and talker and a freelance writer/researcher. He has covered: community broadcasting; devolved politics; the British-Irish conflict; ethno-cultural mingling across the islands of Britain and Ireland; the psycho-biological consequences of detached upper-class child rearing and boarding/residential schools; inter-generational war trauma; and developmental trauma/Complex-PTSD. He posts on Boarding School Survivors Face Book, and is a founding member of the London Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Hub - Find it here https://www.londonaceshub.org/ .
He continues to explore and write, from lived experience, about the linkage between early attachment deficits and ACEs. He has just written a great paper,
'What happened to you? Attachment theory extended'
which can be found here, https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/phoenix/att/2021/00000015/00000001/art00001#
 

42. Knut Sorenson:What’s it like to work in a Norwegian prison?

Some events are so painful, so shocking that they are difficult to think about, to face up to. This conversation is inevitably tainted with the horror at Utøya ten years ago this summer but Knut focusses on the people and the systems that dealt with the immediate aftermath. The prison managers, the officers, the politicians.
Knut Sorenson has worked for 28 years in the Correctional Service in Norway, educated and served as a prison officer for eleven years,  he started as a teacher at the University College of Norwegian Correctional Service. He is also a sociologist and now a phd candidate in criminology at the University of Oslo.  His recent research concerns the effects upon prison staff of working with a very high profile prisoner Anders Breivik as described in his paper Prison officers’ coping strategies in a high-profile critical situation: Imprisonment after the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway

41. Michael West. Compassionate Leadership in the NHS

How do you create compassionate cultures? What does compassionate leadership look like and what are the economic benefits?
Michael West CBE joined The King's Fund as a Senior Fellow in 2013. He is Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University, Visiting Professor at University College, Dublin, and Emeritus Professor at Aston University.
Hugely experienced Michael has authored, edited and co-edited 20 books and has published more than 200 articles on teamwork, leadership and culture, particularly in healthcare. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association (APA), the APA Society for Industrial/Organisational Psychology, the Academy of Social Sciences, the International Association of Applied Psychologists and the British Academy of Management.
Michael has extensive experience of working to improve staff experience and care quality. He assisted the development of the national frameworks on improvement and leadership development in England in Northern Ireland, and is currently supporting Health Education and Improvement Wales to develop the national health and care leadership strategy in Wales. He co-chaired the two-year inquiry into the mental health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives across the UK which was published in 2020. His latest book is Compassionate Leadership published this summer, the link is below.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Compassionate-Leadership-Sustaining-Humanity-Presence/dp/0995766975

40. Baz Dreisinger : Author of Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World

Dr. Baz Dreisinger is a great speaker and Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York;  
Author of the critically acclaimed book Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World;  
https://otherpress.com/books/incarceration-nations/
Founder of John Jay’s groundbreaking Prison-to-College Pipeline program;  
Founder and Executive Director of Incarceration Nations Network;  
2018 Global Fulbright Scholar and current Fulbright Scholar Specialist.  
Dr. Dreisinger speaks regularly about justice issues on international media and in myriad settings around the world. The film series she directed, Incarceration Nations: A Global Docuseries, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021.
If you want to connect or have a showing in your locality contact Baz at Incarceration Nations Network
https://incarcerationnationsnetwork.org/
 
 

39. David Pilgrim & Pat Harvey (BPS Watch): The toxic culture of the British Psychological Society

Earlier this year the British Psychological Society expelled its President Elect Professor Nigel MacClennan who had been elected on a reformist platform. This brought to the surface serious issues about governance, integrity and the vindictiveness of organisations who feel under attack. The BPS is not the first organisation to experience such issues. Here two hugely experienced psychologists talk about why they are so concerned about the state of the BPS and what they would like to see happen.
Pat Harvey (Guinan) has been a British Psychological Society member for around 50 years. She was Chair of the Division of Clinical Psychology 1997-8. She developed and managed a large NHS Psychology and Counselling service in the North West. Additionally she was member of the Mental Health Act Commission and a panel member of an Independent Inquiry into 3 homicides by a conditionally discharged patient. In those latter contexts as well as her managerial NHS role she had considerable experience of handling formal complaints in organisational contexts. She retired as a psychologist in 2002 and trained and practice as an artist before re-engaging in issues concerning complaints regarding the governance and policies of the British Psychological Society in 2020.
 
David Pilgrim PhD is Honorary Professor of Health and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool and Visiting Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Southampton. Now semi-retired, he trained and worked in the NHS as a clinical psychologist before completing a PhD in psychology and then a Masters in sociology. With this mixed background, his career was split then between clinical work, teaching and mental health policy research. He remains active in the Division of Clinical Psychology and the History and Philosophy Section of the British Psychological Society, and was Chair of the latter between 2015 and 2018.
 
His publications include Understanding Mental Health: A Critical Realist Exploration (Routledge, 2015) and Key Concepts in Mental Health (5th edition, Sage, 2019). Others include A Sociology of Mental Health and Illness (Open University Press, 2005- winner of the 2006 BMA Medical Book of the Year Award), Mental Health Policy in Britain (Palgrave, 2002) and Mental Health and Inequality (Palgrave, 2003) (all with Anne Rogers).  His recent books are Child Sexual Abuse: Moral Panic or State of Denial? (Routledge, 2018) and Critical Realism for Psychologists (Routledge, 2020).   

38. Sarah Paget: Therapeutic communities and enabling environments

Sarah Paget has been the Programme Manager for the Community of Communities, a quality network for Therapeutic Communities at the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Centre for Quality Improvement, since 2004. Her work involves the coordination of services and activities that lead to improvement and/or systemic change in a range of services for adults, children and young people across the NHS, voluntary, private, independent, education and criminal justice sectors. She is co-founder of Enabling Environments which was developed in 2009 and has been the Operational Lead for National Enabling Environments in Prisons and Probation Programme since 2013. She also manages two additional Quality Improvement Networks for inpatient Mental Health Rehabilitation and Older Age Mental Health services. Sarah has a Master’s Degree in Psychoanalytic and Systemic Approaches to Understanding Organisations and Leadership from the Tavistock and has a background in Mental Health Nursing and Social Psychology. Prior to her current role she managed a Voluntary Sector Therapeutic Community for people with severe and enduring Mental Health problems for 10 years. Sarah is currently a director of The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities and has written and taught TC principles and practice to a wide range of audiences.
 
Sarah is leaving her role as Programme Manager at RCPsych to embark upon her “Third Stage of life” or Vanaprathsa, according to Hindu philosophy (Hall and Stokes 2021)*. Sarah has spent the past 17 years working with services to improve the quality of the psychosocial environment and will continue to support Therapeutic Communities and Therapeutic Community practice as well as the development of Enabling Environments in all sectors. Sarah offers individuals and organisations the opportunity to look beyond the superficial and obvious to develop an authentic and profound understanding of how individuals and groups interconnect and impact on individual health and organisational functioning. Her methods will involve consulting to individuals and groups using a psychodynamic and systemic framework.
 
Sarah can be contacted at sarahpaget@gmail.com and at linkedin.com/in/spaget
 
* Changing Gear, a Book by Jan Hall and Jon Stokes (changing-gear.com)
 

37. Sarah Jane Lennie: Robocop - how police culture dehumanises

Dr Sarah-Jane Lennie is a Chartered Psychologist and Lecturer in the Police, Organisation and Practice Department of the Open University, UK. Sarah-Jane specialises in social psychology, emotions in the workplace and the mental health and well-being of police officers.  
Sarah Jane comes from a family with deep experience and comittment to the public services including the army and the police force and this brings exceptional weight to her observations of the systemic deficits relating to emotional wellbeing.
Prior to returning to academia Sarah-Jane served for 18 years as a police officer, to the rank of Detective Inspector. Sarah-Jane is an Associate to the College of Policing, as a subject matter expert in mental health and organisational culture.  Sarah-Jane’s research focus is on supporting police officer’s emotional wellbeing through the exploration of officer’s lived experience and the impact of organisational culture on individual mental health.  Sarah-Jane looks at the role of stigma, emotional suppression and dissociation in the increasing cases of PTSD within British officers.  
 
This conversation is part of a double bill we release along with Paul Bradford's reflections on police call centres and emotional literacy and implications for the police service as a whole

36. Paul Bradford. Emotional Literacy in the police service.

Paul Bradford was a serving police officer for thirty years rising to the rank of Inspector. As a single parent family he strove to manage his career to ensure that he was able to best look after his family. His time in community policing enabled him to spend time with victims of crime in ways since eliminated by the new managerialism. He brounght the insights and sensitivity that he gained to his research 'An Emotional Response: The theoretical case for the development of emotional literacy and procedural justice in police call handling.' In this conversation Paul talks about his research and some of the wider implications for police forces.
This conversation is part of a double bill we release along with Sarah-Jane Lennie's research on supporting police officer’s emotional wellbeing through the exploration of officer’s lived experience and the impact of organisational culture on individual mental health.  

35. Lucy Baldwin:what’s it like to be an imprisoned mother?

This is a powerful conversation which is sometimes painful to hear as Lucy describes the inequalities and persecutions for imprisoned mothers and their children. Dr Baldwin points out that the female prison estate is much more related to the needs of the prison service than the risk level of women themselves. The needs of their children are frequently ignored or given a low priority and she points out the importance of ‘academic activism’ in this situation.
(Don't forget to listen to Naomi and Davids final comments at the end.)
 
Lucy is a Senior Lecturer and researcher at De Montfort University. Lucy has worked in criminal and social justice for over 30 years being also a qualified social worker and probation officer.  Lucy’s research and publications focus predominantly on the impact of imprisonment on mothers and their children. Lucy’s Doctoral research focussed on the persisting impact of maternal imprisonment, particularly concerning maternal identity and maternal role. Lucy gave evidence to the recent female focussed farmer review and the 'Joint Human Rights Inquiry in Maternal Imprisonment and the Rights of the Child'. Lucy is currently researching the supervision of mothers and trauma informed probation practice.
 
 When Lucy published Mothering Justice in 2015 it was the first whole book in the Uk to take motherhood as a focus in relation to criminal and social justice. She says thankfully since then the world is more interested in the topic and in the circumstances surrounding criminalised mothers and their children. Lucy has published a number of articles and book chapters (some of her work can be accessed here https://www.nicco.org.uk/directory-of-resources/lucy-baldwin-works-on-maternal-imprisonment) and is currently working on three edited collections and two books - all related to women, mothers and justice. Lucy is a passionate and active advocate for positive change for criminalised women and would like to see a drastically reduced prison population and increased use gender tailored community  disposals. Lucy is working closely in partnerships with several organisations to provide resources and training for those working with criminalised mothers and mothers themselves.  

34. Jan Banning: Artivist challenging the system

Please note this is an audio recording. To see the video with pictures click here
https://youtu.be/rGmh58M0f-0
Jan Banning is a Dutch autonomous artist/photographer, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
He was born in Almelo (Netherlands) on May 4, 1954, from Dutch East Indies parents, and he studied social and economic history at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. Both of these facts have had a strong influence on his photographic works.Banning’s work always has a social focus. The social political environment is put at the fore and it often concerns subjects that have been neglected within the arts and are difficult to portray: state power, consequences of war, justice and injustice. In this conversation we mainly talk about his work making portraits of prisoners in US prisons and in particular about Christina Boyer, wrongly imprisoned for the murder of her daughter. You can see more about this herehttps://gogetfunding.com/wrongfully-imprisoned-for-her-daughters-death-the-book/and read more about Jan below 
https://www.janbanning.com/

33. Jo Brittan. Sexual abuse and entitlement in the english public school system

Jo is a remarkable woman who has led an extraordinary life. Many would see her as being highly privileged but her description and understanding of the pain experienced by little children left in boarding school is painful to hear. She also speaks out about the sexual abuse which took place in Sherborne Prep School, in particular but not only, and how nobody was held to account despite the evidence.
 
"I guess you could describe me as a campaigner for justice for Boarding School CSA Survivors. 2009 to date. Calling for the urgent introduction of Mandatory Reporting of CSA in UK which most of the the rest of the world has had for some time.  You can see in Mandate Now https://mandatenow.org.uk/
 
Australia are setting a great example whilst U.K. drags its heels like a petulant child.
 
Sherborne is an excellent example of how a microcosm society with a Prep and 2 single sex Public Schools effectively covers up CSA (in the case of Lindsays) for over 100 years and it is very like the total abuse of power by Establishment in Jersey.  Absolutely horrific!  Money and power always prioritised over children’s lives forever."

32. Christoph Heubner; Poet and Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee.

Christoph Heubner is a poet and writer of short stories. In addition he has had a long-term collaboration with the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace based in Berlin, he is Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee and Member of the International Auschwitz Council. He has been associated with the International Youth Centre from the beginning, and is one of the founders of this institution in Oświęcim. (https://mdsm.pl/en/)
He wrote this poem for us to mark International Holocaust remembrance Day.
Remember                             the trees and the wind, rememberremember, the wind and the treesno, they did not surrender................please do remember these..............the smoke and the ashes, rememberremember, the ashes, the green.......no, they did not surrender................remember them, it has been......
 
Auschwitz is a powerful representation of the extremes of cruel and harsh imprisonment and the ideologies underlying it. But it is not alone, there were examples before and since. In this conversation Christoph talks about the effect of imprisonment on people in its most concrete form, like Auschwitz and through the actions of oppresive regimes which at times can be more difficult to discern. He talks about his early lifein an Oxford night shelter and on becoming a poet. He describes his many years of involvement with Auschwitz and with the Youth Centre, including, as allegory and metaphor, many beautiful and poiingnant tales of survivors.
In his conversation he mentions several notable people and artefacts
Vasil Bykau was an outstanding writer who wrote about experiences in the Second World War and fought politically against the 'imprisonment of the mind' that the KGB imposed and continues to impose in Belarus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasil_Byka%C5%AD
The poem that Christoph mentions at the end is by Robert Frost, 'and so many miles before I sleep....'
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening

31. Dennis Relojo-Howell: How blogging can help your mental health

How can blogging help your mental health? Today's guest is Dennis Relojo-Howell founder of Psychreg, a digital company that focuses on psychology, mental health, and wellness and has almost 24k subscribers to his Youtube channel. Dennis is doing a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Edinburgh focused on blogging as a wellbeing activity.  In March this year he won the competition “I’m a scientist get me out of here” which is an online programme that enables students to ask STEM professionals questions. In this conversation he tells his amazing story from being born in a Philippine backstreet to becoming a psychologist, developing his prolific website Psychreg and describing his ideas about resiliance and creativity.
https://www.psychreg.org/dennis-relojo-howell/

30. Dr Roberta Babb: gang culture, racism and forging your own way

Dr Roberta Babb is a chartered Clinical Psychologist, organisational consultant and a registered forensic psychotherapist. She and David first met when they both worked at the Millfields Unit, a forensic unit for working with men who had offended and who had personality disorders. That was about thirteen years ago so Roberta has worked in the field for a considerable time. Since then she has developed a number of creative initiatives, including some related to gang cultures, rather than settling into a conventional psychology post. In this conversation Roberta talks about her work, about racisim and about her determination to develop her own pathway where her individual contribution can be made.
 

29. Franz Douw & Edwin Kleiss: TBS Prisons in the Netherlands - hosting ”The Prison Show”

For this episode we are delighted to be hosting Frans Douw and Edwin Kleiss who present the “Prison Show” podcast. Although their podcast is most often recorded in Dutch, there are a number of English episodes so we would encourage you to check it out below. At the age of 20, Frans began working with young incarcerated people before heading up the Dutch Psychiatric Pre-trial Assessment Clinic for 10 years. Between 1988-2015, he was director of several houses of detention, prisons for men and woman and director of the Forensic Psychiatric Centre of the Dutch Prison System. His last position was as a Governor of several penitentiary institutes for long-term (including life-time) incarcerated people.For the last 15 years, Frans has been involved in international knowledge exchange projects within the scope of incarceration and human rights with Russia, former Soviet countries, Great Britain, the Caribbean and the USA. This international involvement sometimes occurs due to his own initiative, but he’s also worked with the Dutch ministry of Justice, NGOs like the Global Initiative on Psychiatry and Mainline and the Council of Europe.In 2011, Toon Walravens and Frans created the foundation of Recovery and Return. This foundation brings together victims, perpetrators, families and professionals and supports Restorative and Transformational Justice. The Podcast Prison Show which Edwin and Frans co-host is an activity of the foundation.
This is a link to our appearance on their Podcast which is in english as are these episodes,11, 21, 23, 29, 30, 39 and 44.
 
https://prisonshow.podbean.com/e/94-locked-up-living-podcast-with-naomi-murphy-david-jones-english/

28. Lucy X: ”The knock” What happens when your partner is convicted of internet sex offences?.

Is it possible for a wife to be entirely oblivious of her husband's sexual offending? Do some people really "not know"? What's it like to discover your partner has been keeping an awful secret? How does the life of you and your children change when your partner is convicted of internet sexual offences?
 
We were introduced to our guest, Lucy, by Professor Winder of Nottingham Trent University who found Lucy to be a powerful and compelling speaker.  This year she was invited to be key note speaker at the National Working Group tackling Child Sexual Exploitation.  Many of the guests we’ve had on have been keynote speakers at national and international events but Lucy stands out as her invite wasn’t a result of her forensic research or treatment expertise but as a consequence of a path of activism that she embarked on in relation to her own experiences and her need to protect the wellbeing of her children.  Lucy has a very important and moving story and we’re delighted to welcome her on to the podcast today to share some of her learning with us.

27. Shadd Maruna: What is desistance?

In this informal and wide ranging conversation Shadd explains what is meant by desistance and how this is distinguished from the term rehabilitation. With great warmth he thinks about the importance of listening, whether as a mentor or mentee and givies his assessment of the structure of forensic psychology
Shadd Maruna is Professor of Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the Correctional Services Accreditation and Advice Panel.  He has previously held the post of Dean of Rutger’s School of Criminal Justice in the USA and worked at Cambridge and Manchester Universities.   
His research focuses on desistance and the implications for reintegration into society after imprisonment.  In 2001, his book, “Making Good: How ex-convicts reform and rebuild their lives” was named as outstanding contribution to Criminology in 2001.   
He has since authored or edited 6 other books and has won the Hans Mattick Award for distinguished contribution to criminology in 2014 and the inaugural research medal from the Howard League for Penal Reform in 2012 for his research’s impact on real world practice.   
He has been a SOROS Justice fellow, a Fulbright Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow.  He has also been involved in several Learning Together partnerships between prisons and universities and is an advisor to several organisations that advocate for rights for people who’ve previously been imprisoned.
Shadd was a long term friend and colleague of Hans Toch, Austrian American social psychologist and criminologist.  Shadd said Hans 'was my mentor for my whole professional career. And my role model as a scholar. He lived a great life.  To 91. He called em like he saw em and he wasn’t afraid.'
As Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, New York Professor Toch had an enormous influence on numerous people in the criminal justice field over many years. We are just receiving news of his recent death and will post when we know more.
 

26: Chris Scanlon: What led to the demise of the Henderson Hospital? (Part One)

Why do services for people diagnosed as personality disordered so often collapse?
The Henderson Hospital was one of the outstanding treatment facilities for traumatised people in the period after the second world war. It was hugely influential for psychiatric practice and the devlopment of therapeutic communities in prisons and one of the most researched institutions in the world. Yet it closed through a lack of funding at a time when fresh money for the treatment of personality disorders was coming on stream. Why and who was responsible? Fiona Warren who participated in the research which illustrated the cost effectiveness of the Henderson and Chris Scanlon who worked there towards the end in 2008, discuss these matters.
From a distance the loss of the Henderson seems mystifying and nobody seems keen to take responsibility. We shall revisit this debate and if you think you would like to contribute to this debate or know someone who could do let us know.
Fiona Warren is a Research consultant, writer, trainer and coach. She worked for ten years as a researcher with  the South West London & St George's Mental Health NHS Trust based at St Georges Hospital and the Henderson Hospital.  In 2005 Fiona took up a post as lecturer in psychology and eventually research director at the University of Surrey
Dr Christopher Scanlon is a Consultant Psychotherapist in general adult and forensic mental health in the NHS, he is also a Training Group Analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis. He has also worked at the Henderson Hospital the pioneering NHS facility for people with severe personality disorders.

25. Dominique Moran: How can geography help us understand and improve prisons?

Today’s guest is Professor Dominique Moran who is professor of carceral geography Birmingham University so her expertise is in providing a geographical perspective on incarceration.   
Dominique is also Chair of the  Carceral geography Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographies. 
She is author of “Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration and editor of a number of texts on spatial geography and its relation to imprisonment.  She is also widely published in a number of leading geographical journals.

24. Sophie Ellis: Servant of the state or therapeutic agent?

Sophie Ellis is a researcher at the Prisons Research Centre, at Cambridge University. She’s interested in the experience of imprisonment for those who live and work in prisons, and in the effects of prison on families. She’s also interested in the intersection between the ‘psy’ disciplines, and state institutions. Before arriving at Cambridge, she spent nine years working in prison-based psychology roles, doing assessments and group-based cognitive-behavioural programmes with prisoners.
During her time in the Prison Service, Sophie conducted research on the psychosocial characteristics of men who behaved violently in custody, and desisted over the course of their sentence. She was interested in how people managed to desist in an environment that typically has elevated levels of violence.
Sophie’s PhD is looking at the role of psychologists in English prisons. It explores their history, their culture, their professional identity, and how they make decisions about deploying their power and expertise in a socially and morally complex environment like prison.