It started from a very small base of work with 20 prisons who were making radio of s
ome sort.
It may not sound like it's educational sometimes - but think of the amount of effore and training that goes into it.
It's not about getting prisoners into classrooms it's about getting content and skills into the cell - delivering the radio to the prisoner
Paula Rogers telling us how Prison Radio engages a "Captive Audience" #digifuture
last yr national prison radio service was created, can now communicate with every prison in UK and wales through in-cell TV #digifuture
main messages about a supporting time in custody and re-offending - through enabling, empowering, upskilling #digifuture
Important part of Prison Radio is not just the output but the input - think of what's gone on to make it happen. Education, enablement and empowering people is paramount. People leaving custody are upskilled, they have the skills that will help them to perform in a job interview, engage with their families..
It's about getting the message across on drugs, it's about practical skills that we can convery about what to do on release; sometimnes we can broadcast job adds for prisoners nearing release.
Prison Radio - Engaging a Captive Audience - Paula Rogers - head of prison radio
20 prisons making radio at the beginning
Last year Paula came on board (background at the BBC)
Jack Straw gave go ahead for national prison radio service- through in-cell TVs.
Delivering in-cell messages - supporting time in custody and rehabilitation - educating and empowering - "upskilled", skills and qualifications.
You can genuinely break reoffending through media.
"People do consume radio and television more than they do the internet"
currently rolling out- currently completed the whole of the SW
Broadcasting 24hrs a day. Not necessarily all high quality programming. Working with outside providers and in-house (prison) production - learning production skills as they go.
Long term as well as short term sentences that we're working with. These people need to keep in touch with the skills of the outside world. Consider that some people are going to be missing 20-30 years of digital innovation.
Paula says it's about a channel we can talk to prisoners on and it's also about involving them in producing work.
Prisoners sharing their experiences, learning processes - producers and presenters.
Impressed with Paula's approach - standing among the audience and engaging with them effectively. She is so genuinely passionate about this stuff.
Prison radio is not mandatory listening- it has to be interesting and relevant. Important to engage with people "at the user end" - produce radio they want to listen to.
"Every cell can be a classroom"
"Anywhere can be a learning environment."
'making sure that everyone no matter what stage they are in their life or their sentence can be involved ' #digifuture
"We can educate people in ways that may seem insignificant to us - but it can make an enormous amount of difference"
We want to be able to educate people in-cell - to participate, listen and get accreditation #digifuture
In the afternoon 'knowledge cafe's Paula will be showing people some of the content that prisoners are producing.
Rachel Thomson talking bout Storybook Dads- where prisoners were taught how to tell stories on DVD for kids at home #digifuture
We are now using this blog to follow the live discussion circle - Knowledge Cafe
Paula Roberts talking about applying her experience to the workshop participants' questions and queries.
Someone asking for particular success stories. Paula - one of the things we always ask when prisoners come onto the prison radio course - it's not set up with entering the media industry as a goal - but rather in order to cultivate 'soft skills' - interview technique, speaking in a more formal or public setting etc.
Simple success stories, a guy from Wandsworth who heard an ad on prison radio for housing - was then able to find housing when leaving, and is returning for an interview on the process of leaving.
A lot of people in prison feel betrayed by education - prison radio gets people involved in a different kind of education - many of them move into more formal kinds of study.
Prison radio can also allow prisoners to open up - in an intimate and one-to-one setting, stories about coming off drugs and of education and learning can be much more powerful than adverts and propaganda.
The afternoon gearing up at #digifuture
http://twitpic.com/q3m63http://twitpic.com/q3mcn - Knowledge cafe getting underway #digifuture
Monitoring uptake in a prison atmosphere is very hard - there needs to be an investment before you garner (what is largely anecdotal) evidence of efficacy.
Questioner asking the extent to which and the motivations of older (nearing retirement) prisoners getting involved in the prison radio system.
You tend to find that older people in prison are "better educated, and committing different kinds of offences" (also admitted this is a generalistion) - they are more interested in stories, poetry, experiences on prison radio
It's also about bringing younger people into speech radio and community sharing.
There's two levels of programming on this system - national out-sourced shows, and the local prison community generated content.
Question: how do you sustain the quality of programming?
Answer: funding, funding, funding. Particualrly hard for prison systems to get funding- most of the funding is garnered through education, learning and skills services.
"prisoners feel betrayed by formal education-prison radio gets people involved in a diff kind of learning" #digifuture
http://bit.ly/WbFUcThere's a problem with getting this content online however -
Broadcast license restrictions, and victim issues (ethics). There is also a responsibility to protect victims from agressors etc.
Q - Are you missing contact with family and friends with those concerns in mind?
A - prisoners are able to take copies of their content with them, also working on projects where prisoners produce content for locally broadcast community radio stations. However each prisoners' voice you broadcast you have to contact any victims and go through their history carefully .
You can also advertise in order to fund the project- but you have to be careful with the content.
Paula Roberts is very eager for anyone with a potential project to get in contact and get involved with prison radio
hmprisonservice.gov.ukGroup 2 discussion begins
by hannahnicklin via Twitpic 11/19/2009 1:57:08 PM
by amandagore via Twitpic 11/19/2009 1:57:24 PM
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