We spent a day with Emma, who teaches yoga and meditation to particularly vulnerable children aged 15-18 in a young offenders institution. The boys have various and complex needs, including neurodiversity, learning disabilities, special educational needs, behavioural problems, and lots of trauma. Some are serving long sentences of 15 years or more.

Emma arrives with a big bag of yoga mats at a block is made up of 4 wings, each with 12 cells down one side, doors opening out onto a carpeted communal area with a couple of sofas, tables and chairs from which windows look out onto the grounds, including a pond. There’s a staff office on each wing.

Being key-trained, the yoga teacher is able to move around freely, greeting prison officers, staff and the young offenders. She moves from wing to wing to see who’s available for yoga.

On the first wing we visit, officers ask us to come back later as “things have kicked off over lunch and there’s rice and peas everywhere.” At another wing a young person, Daniel*, was waiting with his mat ready for a yoga class, but staff asked us to come back later as there was an incident underway in one of the cells overlooking the yoga space, where staff were trying to ‘talk down’ a young person in the midst of a mental health crisis. Continue Reading

Image posed by yoga teacher

Ahead of the Women and Justice: A New Direction summit in London this week, the award-winning Prison Phoenix Trust (The PPT) has emphasised that addressing the mental health needs of women in prison is a fundamental aspect of justice reform.

And it is sharing the latest findings from its mindful yoga and meditation programmes delivered in two women’s prisons throughout 2023 and 2024.

According to recent government statistics, 82% of women in prison report mental health problems, and one third of women in prison engage in self-harming behaviours. This highlights a pressing need for effective interventions to support mental wellbeing.

The summit will explore key solutions for reforming justice for women and follows prisons minister James Timpson’s recent announcement that he aims to close a women’s prison in England or Wales, redirecting offenders to alternative forms of punishment and rehabilitation. The event will bring together influential thinkers, activists, and practitioners to discuss the future direction of justice for women.

To coincide with the summit, Selina Sasse is sharing data from 11 mindful yoga and meditation courses run by The PPT. The results of these programmes, which involved women in two prisons participating in weekly 2-hour yoga and meditation sessions, reveal the significant impact these practices have on mental wellbeing and their potential to aid in rehabilitation and successful reintegration into society.

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Here Richard shares his story for The PPT Winter Appeal, giving back to the charity that helped him in prison.

Richard spent most of his early life in ‘the system’: growing up in care, his autism undiagnosed, he got into trouble, served time in detention centres and borstal, and eventually prison. But today the chaos and suffering that once surrounded him is in the past.

With support from meditation and yoga, he is leading a meaningful life: he volunteers to help others, speaking in public – including in Parliament – about his experiences and providing a role model to others who are lost ‘in the system’.

It was during a move to a new prison, at three in the morning, crammed into a prison van with six officers, blue lights flashing that he decided something had to change.

“I was looking around me thinking, how have I got into this situation? This is a battle I’m losing. I realised I needed to change the battle plan and look at why I’m here.”

He reached out for help to The Prison Phoenix Trust, the UK’s leading charity supporting yoga and meditation in prisons. He wrote – and a mentor from The PPT wrote back, offering to support and guide him from afar as he explored the healing practices of yoga and meditation.

Make a gift to The PPT Winter Appeal

“Prison isn’t a good place to drop your guard,” he recalls, “but through the letters I could talk more openly and look at myself more. I could put my emotions down on paper that I couldn’t say out loud to anyone.” Continue Reading

Support yoga and meditation in prison by buying festive cards designed for The Prison Phoenix Trust by artists in prison.

We’ve chosen two great designs from scores of entries to this year’s competition. Andrew in HMP Moorland created the snowy scene and Lindsey in HMP Eastwood Park the yoga robins design.

Place your order here.

Mixed packs of 10 cards cost £7 (inc P&P). Payment can be by bank transfer to CAF Bank account 00029577, sort code: 40-52-40, putting reference FESTIVE.

Or by cheque payable to The Prison Phoenix Trust, PO Box 328., Oxford OX2 7HF.

Place your order here.

The Prison Phoenix Trust has reached a milestone of 10 contracts providing yoga, meditation or mindfulness programmes to prisons throughout England.

People serving sentences in HMP Maidstone now have the chance to take care of their mental and physical health with regular yoga and meditation classes in the prison’s new sports hall.

The contract to deliver a year of yoga classes was awarded through the Ministry of Justice Dynamic Purchasing System and guarantees reliability and certainty for prison staff and students.

Courses lasting 6 weeks will run 7 times over the course of the year, allowing more than 200 prisoners to take part over the year. Continue Reading

Two new faces have joined The Prison Phoenix Trust, expanding and strengthening its staff team and board of trustees.  

Rebecca Durrant, has joined as deputy director.  She has over 15 years of experience working in small charities in operations and deputy director roles, including most recently managing a food bank in East Oxford. She is helping the organisation plan and implement systems changes needed for it to meet the demand for its services from a growing prison population.  

Stefan Lerche, joins The PPT’s board of trustees.  He lives in Hertfordshire and has a background in human resources, learning and development and organisational development. He works as a business psychologist and executive coach in the IT sector.   Continue Reading

We are delighted to announce that The Prison Phoenix Trust has been Highly Commended for supporting the health and wellbeing of people in prison in the 2024 Inspire Justice Awards.

Host Clive Myrie presented our Director Selina Sasse and the team with a Highly Commended Health and Wellbeing Employer of the Year award, saying: “Their work represents the best of us.”

Helen Judge, Area Executive Director HMPPS, recognised The PPT’s work with ‘some of the most troubled in society’.

In the UK’s only awards programme dedicated to recognising the achievements of the entire criminal justice sector, The PPT was praised highly for its innovative use of yoga and meditation to support the mental health of prisoners during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. This award builds upon the organisation’s 2023 Charity of the Year in the Om Yoga Awards and the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which we have held since 2011. Continue Reading

The Prison Phoenix Trust helped former prisoner Nicola to turn her life around. She has now pledged a powerful legacy to the organisation that gave her the gift of hope

Photo posed by actor

Author Nicola Henneveld has decided to support The Prison Phoenix Trust  with a major gift in her will. “The PPT does such valuable work. I want to leave what  I have to people who really need it and make sure as many people as possible benefit.”

Find out how you too can give the gift of hope.

Nicola’s decision was informed by hard-edged life experience. Twenty five years ago, ‘home’ for Nicola was a prison cell. She was beginning a sentence at HMP Drake Hall in Staffordshire.

“These days I’m living my best life,” laughs Nicola. Now a successful author, she lives in the pretty little cottage she owns in the leafy countryside.  “I’ve got my little house and my dog.  I’m the freest I’ve ever been,” she explains.  “But I saw the real world in prison,” she recalls. “It broke my heart.”

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Join us in London (or online) on Saturday, 2 November 2024, for the inaugural SOAS – BWY Autumn Summit: Yoga, Health, Harm and Healing.

This all-day conference is a collaboration between renowned scholars and leading yoga practitioners aiming to provide a day of learning, reflection, and thought-provoking discussion on contemporary themes in Yoga Studies.

The first two sessions focus on yoga in prisons with expert speakers Prof. Rosie Meek from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Rose Parkes from Institute of Law, Jersey, who is an experienced prison yoga teacher.

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More than 50 prisons across the UK and Ireland took part in yoga and meditation activities as part of Mental Health Awareness Week 2024. Staff used yoga sequence handouts, DVDs and CDs from The Prison Phoenix Trust to guide the people in their care through yoga and meditation exercises to support good mental health.

Launched for Mental Health Awareness Week 13-19 May, people in prison were invited to take part in 30 days of yoga and meditation with The PPT’s Yoga 30 Challenge. The PPT’s regular yoga classes were available in 14 of the prisons taking part. In these, and others, people also took part in their prison cells.

A man in HMP Rochester committed “to start doing yoga first thing every day”. A man in HMP Chelmsford alternated between one day yoga, and one day meditation. Someone in HMP Winchester, who was new to yoga, added different positions at intervals throughout the 30-day challenge. Continue Reading