Clare Lloyd, PET’s Head of Service Delivery, introduces new resources we have created for prison staff as part of our National Lottery Community Fund project.
Doesn’t time fly? We are almost halfway through the second year of this project looking at ways we can support more people complete their PET funded course.
We’ve spoken to lots of people in prison to find out what challenges they face when studying, and what activities enabled them to complete their PET funded course.
Since joining PET I have met many inspiring staff who support distance learning. These amazing people go over and above to make sure that people can complete their PET course.
I hope that by offering more support, together we can better help people to finish their PET course and gain useful qualifications.
If you coordinate distance learning in your prison, are a librarian, an Imam, a member of the safer custody team or are interested to find out how best to support a distance learner, then our new resources are for you!
Support from staff: the key to success
As we’ve previously shared, PET learners have told us that having support and receiving motivation from prison staff was key to their success.
They also told us that being able to sit their exams and access their course tutor for feedback really made a difference to whether they completed their course or not.
Without support from staff in prisons, people would not be able to complete their course and gain valuable qualifications. The benefits are clear: we know that people who participate in education are less likely to reoffend and more likely to find work.
Continuing your invaluable support
To help you and your colleagues continue your invaluable support for distance learners we are creating bitesize videos and printable information cards.
The videos will help you support people on their distance learning journeys. The first shares tips on how to support learners to complete their course and how to help them submit assignments and organise exams.
There will be more videos available for you soon, including one on PET’s application process and another on how our free Advice Line can help you.
All our videos are accompanied by information cards. These written resources provide a summary of the videos, together with additional information. You can print them out so you can refer to them at any time.
Supporting more people, together
We hope that you will watch these videos and read these cards to refresh your own knowledge, but also share them with your wider team and colleagues. The more people that can support distance learners the better.
We all know how challenging it can be to study in prison. Simply asking someone how their course is going can make all the difference – we all need someone to keep us motivated!
Together we can support more people like Sam complete their course:
You can check out the videos, information cards and other resources to help you support learners by logging in to our Prison staff resources page. If you have not created your prison staff account yet, you can do so here.