WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO WORK IN THIS FIELD? I was a hairdresser for 20 years, which fitted really well with the needs of my family when my children were younger. But I’ d always been interested in the criminal justice system and when the children started growing up I looked at my options.

I’ d started the process to become a prison officer when I saw there were some volunteering opportunities for WithYou, and decided to apply. I did a 12-week volunteering course alongside my recruitment into the prison service, then started working in the police custody suite and the courts as a volunteer. I absolutely loved it. After about ten months a job came up, which I applied for and got, then on the same day I found out I’ d also got into the prison service! I chose WithYou, and it was absolutely the best decision. I’ ve been able to have a huge impact on people’ s lives.

I’ ve worked for WithYou for 18 years and loved every minute of it. I was a court custody worker for three years, then a criminal justice team leader, operations manager, service manager, head of service delivery, and now I’ m about to start this new role which I’ m really excited about – it’ s a new role for both me and the organisation.

One of the first things will be to develop a new criminal justice strategy to align with the new organisational strategy. I want to meet all the key internal stakeholders to understand what’ s working, what’ s not, what gaps exist, and then bring it all together.

Most importantly, I want to talk to the clients to find out what we need to do to get the best outcomes for them.

WHICH PARTS OF YOUR JOB DO YOU FIND MOST REWARDING? I’ m just really committed to helping the people we work with. Having gone from being a volunteer right up to senior management, I’ ve always been very client – and people – focused. It’ s about helping people make those very small, tangible changes – for example getting somebody a prescription so tomorrow they ' re not going to shoplift – and seeing how that impacts on their wellbeing.

I’ m also really passionate about our staff and empowering them to be able to do the best job they can. At the moment there’ s a lot of innovation happening at WithYou, and I’ m really excited for us to do that collectively.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHANGE? Two things stand out – firstly, stigma. People use really dehumanising language about our criminal justice clients, and they’ re excluded from so many different areas in everyday life such as GP surgeries and shops – I’ ve worked with clients who’ ve not been able to get food. That exclusion and stigma surrounds them, instead of people understanding them and providing support and help. A lot of criminal justice clients are also viewed as really dangerous when actually they’ re not. We just need to understand people

' Having gone from being a volunteer right up to senior management, I’ ve always been very client – and people – focused. It’ s about helping people make those very small, tangible changes.'

better. It’ s a passion of mine to be an advocate to change that stigma.

Secondly, continuity of care is absolutely vital. Drug deaths after release from prison are so high. Our 12-month rolling continuity of care data is above the national average across all of our services, but there has to be better support for people leaving prison and we as an organisation can’ t do that on our own. I want to work collaboratively with our partners to make sure that people being released from prison have their basic needs met – accommodation, financial support, essential medication. When people leave without those things in place, all we’ re doing is setting them up to fail.

WHAT’ S YOUR ADVICE FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING A SIMILAR CAREER? I’ d say go for it. It can be very difficult, and you can have really challenging days, but seeing people make those small changes and the difference you can make in people’ s lives outweighs all of that. It’ s a great career to be in.