Office working north London seems to have decided against working in Christmas week

The politicians are right! Let's move away from sweets and games consoles as rewards in prison! Instead let's have industrious environments, high-quality education and work, programmes to help behaviour change, and highly trained expert staff! Should cost about the same, right?

Writing in @russellwebster.com's blog, Unlocked's CEO and Founder @natashaporter.bsky.social explained the role that our new book Leading Prison Landings: The Unlocked Guide to Jailcraft can play in supporting prison officers to improve their relational practice and have the greatest possible impact

This is HUGE news! After 9 years of research and testing and analysis, we are FINALLY releasing this @unlockedgrads.bsky.social book! Harry Fletcher-Wood is the brilliant co-author, and there's even a foreword by the amazing Alison Liebling! 👊

Really struggling to understand how people can be AGAINST legislation that limits children’s access to pornography and extreme violence online. Especially because we know unfettered internet access is damaging children and our society, and is giving easy access to predators.

Low key offended that the Bluesky age verification thing took about a millisecond to work out from scanning my face that I am an adult. Also though, quite brilliant that this has been introduced!

Such a lovely evening with Public First / Stonehaven celebrating the arrival of summer! Loved catching up with so many of the best people 🙌 Also V&A is just the best place for an evening of summer drinks 💕

Delighted to be invited by @thefea.bsky.social to speak to a group of founders and CEOs about setting up a board of trustees. I have an incredible board at @unlockedgrads.bsky.social, and also lucky to be on a number of brilliant boards, so it was great to share what I’ve seen work and not!

'We must get real about how much support many prisoners need' ‪@natashaporter.bsky.social‬ of Unlocked Graduates warns that David Gauke's prisoner early release plan needs to unlock opportunities, not just doors

Take a look at my piece in @feweek.bsky.social on why the proposed incentives to get prisoners engaging in education have the potential to be incredible, but how easy it will be to screw the whole thing up (and of course, how to make sure it isn’t!) feweek.co.uk/early-prison...

Love seeing this! HMP Manchester had an urgent notification about 6 months ago (prison equivalent of special measures), and @unlockedgrads.bsky.social participants there really wanted to help create more rehabilitative opportunities for the prisoners in their care. This is one of those ideas!

Really brilliant, inspiring piece on how hugely rewarding - as well as challenging - being a foster parent is. (Also if you’re in London, Now Foster is up and running and offers extra support for new foster parents) www.thetimes.com/article/f8e4...

Our COO at @unlockedgrads.bsky.social Libby is off on mat leave today, and we are so excited to be welcoming a new smallest person to the wider Unlocked family soon! I’m really proud to run an organisation where we really support incredible women to have children while in c-suite jobs 💪

Scandinavia is often an unhelpful comparator for public service reform, but I really believe this model could be transformative. Frontline staff being empowered and developed so they can lead a culture of rehabilitation is very exciting! observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Despite the headline here, I actually think this Gauke review recommendation could be a game changer and am very much in favour - but only if it’s delivered well! ‘No evidence’ early prison release scheme will work, expert warns www.thetimes.com/article/73ff...

This from the Gauke sentencing review is exactly what is needed - sentencing which recognises and rewards prisoners’ engagement in purposeful activity and education whilst in prison. Now we need to build a prison system which can effectively deliver this.

I am on a train and then man next to me has just taken his shoes and socks off, and the man opposite has now taken his shoes off. Has this become a thing that people do?!

This is a must read article for anyone considering school mental health interventions. It also should make us more wary if considering how universal “trauma informed approaches” are rolled out across schools. Targeted approaches delivered by experts seem to have the best evidence.

V interesting data crunching from @impetus.org.uk out today looking into who ends up being NEET ideally so we can stop it happening so often. And this really matters because 1 in 7 young adults are currently NEET!

Suddenly got subtitles? Not sure how I feel about this.

Here we go!

Hoping the return of EU youth mobility scheme means the return of a thriving aupair sector! www.thetimes.com/article/91ba...

Very proud to have these @unlockedgrads.bsky.social celebrated tonight at a Ministry of Justice awards event. Eli for introducing a library and culture of reading onto the induction unit where he works, and Jim for bringing in a system to better support diabetic prisoners across his prison!

The first time I went into a prison that held children, I saw a pile of familiar children’s books, including Jacqueline Wilson’s Sleepovers, outside the cell of a 15 year old boy who had to be unlocked by three prison officers wearing full riot gear. feweek.co.uk/locked-up-yo...

So excited @unlockedgrads.bsky.social has codified an instructional coaching model for prison officers for the first time! We hope this revolutionises prison officer training, offering a new evidence-based approach to reflect the enormous challenges and complexities of the role.

I’ve been at a couple of events focused on creating more inclusive schools recently, and it’s such a disconnect between what behaviour some people think schools should accept to be inclusive, and how chaotic, unsafe and non inclusive a school would be if it actually allowed that behaviour.

Enjoyed being on @amymayforrester.bsky.social and @adamboxereducation.bsky.social late night edu podcast! Covered such controversial topics as early intervention being over hyped, rethinking exclusions for better outcomes, schools and prisons, and cold oats… open.spotify.com/episode/0RlD...

Lots out this week about exclusions and the CJ system, and needing more inclusive schools. As someone with experience of both ends of the system I completely agree, but the best start point for a more inclusive school is not to stop excluding! It’s to seriously invest in improving behaviour.

A few bits here are just bonkers. Firstly the prison population issues are absolutely not because of increases in exclusion. Secondly it is weird to suggest that because there are links between the cohort excluded from school and those committing serious violence we should stop exclusions.

Of course you can balance a full-time job with being a hands on parent they said. It will be fun they said. Especially fun to make a bloody balloon arch at the end of an incredibly busy week at work while you try to work out what to feed loads of 5 year olds tomorrow, they said.

Great day of prison visits to HMP Pentonville and HMP Wandsworth with our Swedish and US prison colleagues. Incredible opportunity to collaborate and learn from best international corrections practice, and to be sharing solutions from @unlockedgrads.bsky.social too!

Jazz hands for the annual @unlockedgrads.bsky.social conference! We have hundreds of operational prison staff hearing from an incredible line up of speakers from the US, Sweden and all across the UK, all talking about HOPE and spreading the word that change is possible! #unlockedconference

5 years ago today the maternity ward went into lockdown just as I was coming out of a c section. My husband rushed home to get our son for the much prepared “first meeting” with his new baby sister, but they were locked out of the ward so we waved at each other through the glass instead.

Such a privilege to hang out with these inspiring prison reformers from Sweden and the Little Scandinavia reform unit in Pennsylvania, USA. Change is POSSIBLE!! Can’t wait to hear from them all at the @unlockedgrads.bsky.social conference tomorrow!

So excited @impetus.org.uk have opened these new grant rounds - there is so much potential for impact here! If your organisation is focused on either of these areas, and is awesome at what you do, then do take a closer look!

Anyone else find themself completely unable to hold back when someone complains on the class WhatsApp that “school is making us read with our kids at home when it’s the teachers’ job and don’t they understand some parents are very busy”? Nope me neither… 😳

Glad to see the risk of social media to children being taken seriously and @joshmacalistermp.bsky.social bill today. The idea kids can be educated out of being harmed by social media shows a complete lack of understanding of the actual risks these platforms pose.

Happy world book day!! 📚 Love that my 7 year old has discovered the joys of Narnia this year 💕 #worldbookday

There are so few girls in custody (~12) and policy structures always struggle to respond to areas where such small numbers of people are affected. This is a good decision, but it must now lead to these girls actually getting the expert support they need. www.cypnow.co.uk/content/news...

Great news for @unlockedgrads.bsky.social as Dame Sally Coates becomes our new chair! Huge gratitude too to our founding chair Rt Hon David Laws for 9 years of brilliant chairmanship - it’s been a real privilege to work alongside him.

I was 38 weeks pregnant and had no inkling that the hospital would go into lockdown as I was giving birth on 13th March, or that one of my daughter’s very first words would be “mask” #fiveyearson

Day 3 of world book day costume creating 🫠 this is classic parenting guilt in action trying to make up for multiple years of working mum last minute purchases from Amazon...

Worth noting that prison officers are currently on strike in New York State in part 24 hour shifts which apparently can turn into 32 hour shifts (😱), and on their list of demands is for their employers to offer a mental health app so they can get some MH support- the gap is huge.

Any interest in prison reform? Great piece here on what can be learnt from Norway, including where it’s now failing: “For the U.S. to succeed, it must invest in staffing, ensuring correctional officers are well-trained, fairly compensated, and supported” www.realclearworld.com/articles/202...

I have been waiting a loong time for some of this data. My fellow data nerds: this @childrenscomm.bsky.social report is fascinating. Children in prison often know each other from before. But this is a group of only ~500 kids across England and Wales. How can such a small number be connected?

As always v interesting polling by Public First for The Times showing that the public actually have quite nuanced views on sentencing. This is useful because it gives cover for political decisions that reduce the use of custody where other options would be better www.thetimes.com/article/5127...

Car MOT today. Got a call from the garage. All okay until they told me that there WAS A RAT NEST IN THE ENGINE!! Even though I opted in to literally all the cleaning options now I never want to get in the car ever again and everyone is calling it the rat mobile and I really want to move country.

If we want to make prisons better at rehabilitating prisoners (which we definitely do because reoffending is unbelievably expensive and makes us all less safe) then investing in our frontline prison officers is an absolute no brainer!

A great example of when education journalism is well-meaning but wrong. High behaviour expectations doesn’t mean lessons are boring! Some quick fire questions for information retrieval doesn’t mean there’s never any creativity! Consistency isn’t damaging! www.spectator.co.uk/article/stri...

Great to be at the latest Bromley Briefings launch this evening. Such a brilliant annual piece of research by @prtuk.bsky.social, and one which undoubtably has a huge impact on the prison service. prisonreformtrust.org.uk/publication/...