Inside the coaching room: Exploring resilience for life after prison
Moving through the justice system and rebuilding a life on the other side requires significant resilience. In this blog, Molly – StandOut Coach at HMP Pentonville – explains how we support our participants to recognise, and sustain, their inherent resilience.
During our three-week course in prison, the coaching room fills up with posters; key aspects of the course cover the walls. We return to them again and again, reinforcing key themes and learnings. Finally, they are moved to the graduation room for a celebration of our participants' progress and success; these learnings and posters a testament to the work put in and the learning done by those graduating. Amid the vast collection, there is one poster I find myself returning to during almost every part of the course—resilience.
“Coaching our participants has taught me a lot about resilience.”
Whilst not every person in prison would use that word to describe themselves or their experiences, they each demonstrate resilience every day, living in such a challenging environment. Coaching our participants has taught me a lot about resilience, and it is an exciting part of the course when we get to name that quality and affirm their strength by doing so.
“Participants hold up and champion each other, and understand how resilience manifests in their lives.”
When we first ask participants to define resilience, we find that many do not know how they could apply that word to their own life, or do not recognise the word at all. But the dictionary definition we offer - ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties’ - quickly sparks a personal and powerful discussion in which participants share examples and experiences from their own lives. This conversation offers up an arena in which participants hold up and champion each other, and understand how resilience manifests in their lives, far beyond the dictionary definition.
“We examine how we can protect and reinforce our resilience, and how we can foster and strengthen this mindset.”
We also discuss how staying resilient, despite inevitable knocks and setbacks, is difficult – and a challenge in itself. Recognising this, we examine how we can protect and reinforce our resilience, and how we can foster and strengthen this mindset so that our participants are best placed to realise their goals and make positive choices moving forwards. We recognise and remind our participants that it is often our challenges that make us stronger, like the torn fibres of a muscle rebuilding. Like a muscle, resilience is something that needs to be worked on and built.
After this specific discussion on mindset, StandOut coaches continue to weave this thread of resilience throughout the course, encouraging participants and empowering them to recognise their own abilities and strengths. We also offer up opportunities to stretch their own resilience, challenging their comfort zones - whether in presentations and mock interviews, or at graduation.
“StandOut doesn’t shy away from the possible challenges of release.”
For someone in prison, their resilience is tested daily. However, upon release, they’ll need an even greater supply. StandOut doesn’t shy away from the possible challenges of release, and we talk frankly with participants about the difficulties they could face. We know that the post-prison path is a difficult one.
We highlight the importance of resilience in terms of working with probation, disclosure, money, the career ladder and so much more. We continue to reflect participants’ resilience and consolidate how a resilient mindset can help us to overcome challenges. Championing and reflecting participants’ innate resilience and empowering them to recognise the positive choices they can make - even in the face of the numerous challenges a journey within the criminal justice system can pose - is a corner stone of the StandOut curriculum.
This is why it is the resilience poster that I find myself coming back to throughout the course; resilience is foundational to the experiences of our participants, and to all those navigating their way out of the criminal justice system.
Molly, StandOut Coach