What do Voices Unlocked DO?
Voices Unlocked supports detainees* and the staff responsible for their welfare (officers, mental health workers, in-reach teams) through the following services:
Developing a network of 'Voices & Visions' peer support groups in prisons, secure units, Immigration Removal Centres, and Youth Offender Institutions.
Developing and delivering specialist training around supporting these detainees* from coping strategies to suicide prevention.
Creating focus groups with detainees* with 'lived experience' of the Criminal Justice system to develop resources around coping strategies.
Campaigning to raise awareness around these issues to develop communications and services to reduce social stigma and isolation.
*who hear voices, see visions, or have other unusual sensory experiences
Why is Voices Unlocked IMPORTANT?
In 2013 the MoJ revealed figures that show 25% of women and 15% of men detained in prison report hearing voices, seeing visions, or having unusual sensory experiences.
This statistic, which highlights the significant issues around voice hearing in detention, has also been linked to suicide, self-harm, drug-use, and in some cases violence in the prison system. Detainees struggling with voice hearing also report finding problems adjusting to prison life, increased stress levels, and difficulties accessing education and jobs within prison.
Statistics from the MoJ to September 2023 show that suicide rose by 24% and self-harm by 21% over the twelve months previous in male and female prisons across the UK, and a 2007 HM Prison Inspectorate linked hearing voices with 20% of 'self-inflicted' deaths while in prison.
The Voices Unlocked projects aim is to prevent and reduce suicide and self-harm among detainees* in these institutions; to reduce isolation, social exclusion, and systemic social stigma; and raise awareness around better understanding relating to issues surrounding this emerging area of mental health in the prison system.
What DIFFERENCE has Voices Unlocked made?
Since 2010 Voices Unlocked has supported detainees* and the staff responsible for their welfare through peer support groups, specialist training, workshops, communication, and resources in fifty Criminal Justice institutions across the UK.
Of these institutions, in 2022/23 following the difficulties accessing prisons during the Covid-19 Lockdowns, 'Voices & Visions' peer support groups were either running or being set up in nine institutions from HMP Bronzefield to HMP Pentonville, with a further thirty-one having expressed interest in support and signposting.
While Covid-19 represented a significant challenge for the development of this network of peer support groups, such was the demand that Voices Unlocked delivered specialist online training for two-hundred-and-twenty prison staff and mental health workers in 2020/21, and by 2022/23 was providing email and call support and signposting to three-hundred-and-thirty such workers.
Other such successes of the project include the research, development, and distribution of thirty 'coping kits' for detainees* using prisoner-led focus group for best practice, and applying to present the work of Voices Unlocked to ISPS at their international conference in September 2022.