Amicable is an innovative project which provides people in prison with a model for solving complex problems. It involves prisoners being trained to support other prisoners to address the challenges they're facing in their lives in a structured way.
It is currently being piloted in a handful of prisons in the north of England but researchers hope to expand it across the prison estate.
To explain how it works, we went to the University of Leeds for a recording in front of a live audience, along with three guests:
Professor Amanda Perry is a Chartered Forensic Psychologist, Professor of the Mental Health and Addiction Research Group at the University of York, and she is also the lead on the Amicable programme.
Gwyne is currently serving a prison sentence and is one of the Amicable mentors. His prison granted him release on a temporary licence to be here today.
Rob Knight is the governor of HMP Manchester, a category A prison also known as Strangeways. He’s going to be telling us all about the complexities of running a maximum security prison and why he wanted to include the Amicable project in his prison.
Amicable is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. You can find out more information about the project here.
Presenters: Paula Harriott
Production team: Sam Taylor, Tim Colman, Nathan Moore, Andrew Wilkie
The Prison Radio Association is a charity that runs National Prison Radio, the world’s first national radio station for people serving prison sentences. We employ people in prison to develop their skills, find their best voices and help them discover ways to lead crime-free lives after release.
To make a donation please visit prison.radio/donate.
To contact the show, please email podcasts@prison.radio.
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