We believe that coaching is a solution to many problems happening within our prisons. We have a team of professional coaches who are fully qualified and trained, with over 2,000 hours of coaching experience, including with blue-chip, global companies. 

Here’s what we can tell you about coaching:

  • Coaching is a facilitated conversation, allowing individuals and systems/​groups to find their own solutions to their own problems.
  • Unlike mentoring, coaching offers very little advice or guidance, as we believe that the person is the expert of their own life.
  • Coaching empowers people living and working in prisons, enabling self-sufficiency, fostering independence and building personal responsibility. 
  • Coaching uses specific tools and techniques, like specific questioning and thought-provoking prompts, which can help transform lives and environments and achieve goals.
  • Coaching has been established as a transformative tool in healthcare, education and sporting sectors.

“If you give someone good advice and they follow it and it works, it feels great for them and you. Their takeaway will be that you give good advice. Imagine if you helped someone get to a great answer for themselves — their big takeaway would be ​‘I am capable and I can make good decisions’.”

- Vicki Cardwell, Spark Inside CEO

In 2020, we were asked by the Ministry of Justice digital department to prepare some digital coaching content as part of a pilot scheme allowing young people in prison to access a variety of digital resources focused on rehabilitation and education. We are pleased to share below three short podcasts about coaching.

What is coaching?

In this episode our podcast host Simone Ujah talks to life coach Jeffrey Wotherspoon about what life coaching is, how it works in prisons and how it can transform lives.

Heroes

In the second episode of our podcast series, our host Simone Ujah meets life coach Jerry Gray to discuss who can be a hero, and how you can see yourself reflected in your hero.

From prison to entrepreneur

In the third episode of our podcast series, Simone talks to Spark Inside trustee Kenny Imafidon about his inspiring journey from being on remand for a murder he didn’t commit, to a successful career as an entrepreneur, political commentator and activist.

Mark Bixter, Hero’s Journey™ coach, says:

“There’s no doubt about it that working in the prison system is challenging, but it is always immensely rewarding. I have had the privilege to witness the true extent of my client’s positivity, resourcefulness and resilience.

It is a powerful and humbling moment when clients realise that their past does not define them and they have the power to take control of the possibilities in their future.”

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