14 May 2020

Our mental health team at HMP Bronzefield has been working with prisoners to co-develop coping strategies during isolation and what has worked best for service users.

The below is by Clinical Psychologist Dr Christy Pitfield on the work she and her team have been doing following an idea from assistant psychologists Rosie Casey (left) and Talana Adams (right), who are both pictured. Rosie Casey_left_Talana Adams_right.JPG

“The residents were asked to put into words what things have worked well for them during their isolation thus far.

“We have then drawn out some themes, emotions and sentences and the results have been really positive so we were hoping to capture and share this in some way.

“It is really important that we keep service user involvement going at a time like this and therefore came together as a team to think about what we could do to include service users in a project that supports everyone in the prison's mental health. Our residents are currently spending lengthy periods in their cells, struggling with their mental health and feeling disconnected from those important to them. As psychologists, we know how important human connection is, especially in the face of high levels of distress and fear. We therefore wanted to come up with a way of helping women to connect with each other during this time and to normalise the their distress.

“Our residents have always been keen to share their positive ways of coping with each other and we felt as a team that it was really important they could keep doing this. Our Mental Health Therapies Team therefore came up with this project! This involves women sharing with us what has helped them cope in lockdown at Bronzefield and us sharing this with other residents and staff. So far we have received a really good response from residents and our safer custody team!

Here are some excellent quotes so far:

  • “pick up a pen and write a few lines – I write my thoughts in a sort of poem – to put things down can help”
  • “try to write positives – what you can do when all this is over”
  • “make a list or phone someone – family would probably be happy to hear from you”
  • “don’t sit and dwell”
  • “we’re all in the same position”