The Ambassadors programme at HMP Long Lartin

We asked Sing Inside violunteer and workshop leader Emilie Brittain to report back on how the Ambassadors programme at HMP Long Lartin has been going and the impact the programme has had since it officially finished last year.

I had been volunteering on Sing Inside workshops for a while and with a background in

facilitation and music-making, I was very interested when Programme Manager Lucy told me about the new Ambassadors scheme - a National Lottery funded project that Sing Inside were going to be trialling at HMP Long Lartin. Long Lartin is a maximum security prison in Oxfordshire, housing around 600 men.

What is it like in HMP Long Lartin?

I have been drawn to volunteering and facilitating at HMP Long Lartin because of the

incredible culture of music-making. Lesley, the Salvation Army Chaplain and musician,

places singing high up on the priority list, encouraging singing hymns in church services,

running a christmas choir whilst also being the biggest cheerleader and advocate for Sing Inside. The wider chaplaincy team are supportive & collaborative and always make the Sing Inside team feel so welcome - even sharing their Friday picnic lunches with me when I was in delivering an ambassadors session (thanks guys!) The chapel itself is a bright, large room and feels like a positive space. There are about 25 ‘regulars’ that come and participate in Sing Inside workshops, and it is clear how important it is to many of them. Among the mix, there are some talented musicians, some people singing as part of a choir for the first time, some who would rather play an instrument than sing - but because we’ve been in regularly over the past few years, we’ve grown to see what skills everyone can bring to make the sessions as good as they can be.

What is the Ambassadors scheme?

The Ambassadors scheme takes the form of a short morning session prior to a day long

Sing Inside workshop. The aim of these sessions, and of the wider ambassadors scheme, is all about empowering participants to take initiative, make the most out of Sing Inside workshops and help them to be reflective of the participants themselves. When I began facilitating these sessions, specific desired outcomes that we established as a group of around ten men included; equipping participants with workshop leading skills and building the confidence to run physical and vocal warm ups, discussing improvements and creating plans of action to make those improvements happen, increasing number and diversity of participants in workshops and focusing on making sessions accessible.

The sessions themselves - what did we do?

Think of the ambassadors as the committee for Sing Inside - we began the first session by designing and delegating roles. Who wants to lead physical/vocal warm ups? Who wants to be in charge of hosting responsibilities? Who wants to be a Sing Inside ‘rep’ in charge of bringing in new faces? We had interesting discussions about what we could improve (putting lyrics on a screen rather than handwritten on a flipchart, setting up a system for song suggestions, encouraging greater inclusivity across the prison population) and what we could realistically achieve. We set goals, and with the help of musician and Sing Inside facilitator Colin, we trained participants up in leading warm ups and physical energisers, we started rehearsing the band to accompany the singers, we workshopped how to help people feel safe in sessions that perhaps hadn’t been before and might be feeling nervous, we discussed songs and suitability for singing them in a Sing Inside session, and over the year a culture of respect for each other’s skills and ideas was really cemented.

What was valuable in these sessions?

Several of the men told me that to have responsibility and ownership meant a lot to them while in prison. To me, what also felt key was the teamwork behind making all the changes happen. Seeing the ambassadors start as a group of men, not quite knowing what would be feasible, to really working together and seeing the positive effects of their efforts. Working out that singing songs with a call and response nature - like sea shanties! - is a great way to start Sing Inside workshops. With simpler melodies but opportunities to sing in harmony, we collectively decided they were a satisfying but also rousing way to kick off the workshops. My personal highlight was teaching ‘The Wellerman’ to a choir of 35 stamping along in time.

The focus that the ambassadors had on approaching Sing Inside from a perspective of

inclusivity and accessibility was inspiring - from thinking about how to change language

when delivering physical warm ups and offering tiered participation (e.g stand if you’re able to, but here’s a seated version if you’re not), to trialling ‘ice breakers’ to help people feel safe to work with each other (turn to the person next to you and in one minute describe a piece of music that is important to you), to ensuring that anyone new (be that a volunteer from the outside or a participant who’d not been before) was offered tea and made to feel welcome.

The impact

The impact of the ambassadors scheme across the year at HMP Long Lartin has been

amazing to see and be a part of. Sing Inside has become a part of these men’s routines,

something that not only acts as a circuit break but a chance to be a part of something

positive. It almost sounds too obvious, but on the inside, and I think outside of prison too, actually learning to listen to each other, to enable a group culture where people feel they can bring the best of themselves - their ideas, their skills - should always be a priority.

Some of my best moments from the ambassadors scheme;

- Attending the Carol Service in December last year, where an ambassador/Sing

Inside member had written a sea shanty inspired song and taught it to the Christmas

choir, who performed it as part of the service.

- A participant crafting a beautiful song suggestion box, with Sing Inside branding.

- Last visit, having five new faces join us, one of which told me that it was his best day

of his nine years in prison.

Interpersonally, there’s a huge value to running schemes like these; using your voice

whether it’s for singing, insisting that we sing an Abba song next time or welcoming

someone new, is an essential part of building these very important communities.

Emilie Brittain