Hello 🙂

Thank you for visiting my fundraising page – I am taking part in the London Vitality 10K on 22nd September, raising awareness and funds for Imago Dei (ID for short). I have been on ID's young adults' staff team, ID Essence, since 2019 so this is a cause very close to my heart!

There is a stigma around prisons which can often mean that the needs, experiences, and feelings of the people inside them tend to be "out of sight and out of mind". But people in prison are people, who, like everyone else, need support, to be cared for, to be listened to, to feel believed in, to know their value and worth, and space to be themselves. So, I’m excited to be taking part in the 10K run as an excuse to shout about the people we support, how unique and brilliant they are, and the work we do.

Thank you for your interest in the work we do and the people we support at Imago Dei! Keep reading for more information about the need, our work, and some feedback about the support we offer.

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The need

People in women’s prisons have experienced disproportionate levels of rejection and suffering throughout their lives – often by people in their life that they should have been able to rely on. These experiences can have a hugely damaging impact on a person’s understanding of who they are and what they have to offer society. They mean that many women+ in prison have missed out on opportunities in a number of areas of life, leaving them stuck in cycles of re-offending without any sense of hope or real prospects away from a life of crime. For example:

• 31% of women+ in prison were taken into care as a child,

• 53% of women+ in prison reported experiencing emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child (compared to 27% of men)

• 46% of women+ in prison report having suffered a history of domestic abuse.

• Around 40% of women+ in prison left school before age 16 – 10% before the age of 13

• 30% were permanently excluded from school (compared with 1% of the general population).

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Our work

Imago Dei and its 4 projects support people in women’s prisons and after release in London and the South-East.

In prisons:

• ID run short term group courses for people of all ages; Understanding Loss, Understanding Forgiveness, Parenting and FLOURISH (a self-esteem course).

• ID Essence offer 1-to-1 sessions for 18–25-year-olds for the long-term; these are usually a blend of self-development course content – e.g. Managing Emotions, Navigating Society, Communicating Differently – and pastoral support/mentoring.

After release:

• Support continues for those who’ve engaged with ID Essence whilst in custody through practical and pastoral support in the community. This can be anything that the individual will find helpful to them, but might include: attending appointments together, weekly phone calls, meeting up for coffee/food together, applying for grants on their behalf, signposting to other relevant and specialist agencies, advocating for them in areas such as housing, training, employment.

• #SheMatters is part of ID’s Community arm – born from a campaign ID ran in 2021 to raise awareness that every person in women’s prisons matters, we have run two yearly #SheMatters Women’s Criminal Justice System conferences, have an Employment Network, and a charity shop in Tunbridge Wells.

• ID Grace House is a project is not open yet (hopefully vey soon!), but will be a house set up specifically to offer housing with support and life skills training for women leaving prison in the South East, who may otherwise be homeless and need further resettlement provision. Watch this space!

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In their words

Quotes below are lifted with permission from ID Essence's latest End of Year Survey:

• '[ID Essence are] people that actually care and don't just say it. And a service that understands who we are, not what we are.'

• 'I can see now my initial reactions to something not going as anticipated and learning how to change my response.'

• '[ID Essence help me with] Learning - I can't do it myself, it's bold to do things differently from how you've always done it, so [my ID Essence worker] helps me be bolder and better at changing how I respond to my emotions.'

• 'Sessions are pretty relaxed and informal so I don't feel pressured.'

• 'You treat us as humans.'

• 'I can turn to someone when I'm struggling.'

• 'It's provided a regular session for me to discuss any concerns and talk things through which I've found helpful.'

• 'I haven't been violent since we started [1-to-1 sessions], I nearly was but I didn't fight. Helped me when we looked at the stories like Oprah. They didn't better their lives by fighting.'

• '[ID Essence helps me] a lot, it has influenced my behaviour. Felt in the past I was stopping myself from doing better Essence gave me the courage to do so.'