Women In Prison
Winner – Board Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
About the Charity
Women in Prison (WIP) is a national charity that provides independent, holistic, gender-specialist support to women facing multiple disadvantages – this includes women involved in (or at risk of being involved in) the criminal justice system. The charity works in prisons, the local community and ‘through the gate,’ supporting women leaving prison. It runs Women’s Centres and ‘hubs’ for services in Manchester and London. WIP’s combined services provide women with support and advocacy, relating to domestic and sexual abuse, mental health, harmful substance misuse, debt, education, training, employment, and parenting.
The experience and knowledge of staff working directly with women affected by the criminal justice system enable the charity to see first-hand the effects of policy in practice and strengthen its recommendations for change.
Charity number: 1118727 | WomenInPrison.org.uk
Women, Prisoners and Ex-Offenders | England – London | 26-100 paid staff
What the Board Achieved
The board of Women in Prison understands that none of its strategic aims are possible without a clear understanding of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). In 2020, trustees made a commitment to understand and embed EDI throughout the board’s work. In 2021, a values committee (of trustees and staff) was established to develop recommendations for improving EDI within WIP. These facilitated conversations led to the development of an internal language guide to support the organisation, helping it to avoid using oppressive and stigmatising language. Following a board skills analysis, the board decided to expand in order to gain representation from women with lived experience and from diverse backgrounds, and to find people with skills that were not already being met by trustees.
Working with a consultant, trustees co-developed the Beyond Suffrage Programme (BSP) – a comprehensive board recruitment, induction and training programme to support women with lived experience of the criminal justice system in becoming trustees at WIP. Alongside this, the board undertook an open recruitment process focused on promoting equity of opportunity to help WIP find people from under-represented groups, with expertise as well as indirect lived experience of contact with the criminal justice system. This was motivated by the knowledge that many marginalised groups are under-represented on boards, but overrepresented in the criminal justice system; for instance, Government statistics show that black women are twice as likely to be arrested compared to their white counterparts. WIP understands that a diverse board of trustees can improve the discussions and decision-making on the board, giving a voice to those who can better understand or represent the community of women mostly likely to need the charity’s support. In alignment with WIP’s values, the language used during the recruitment process welcomed candidates, avoided jargon and was easy to read; allowing the charity to successfully attract a wide variety of candidates. Interviews were designed to enable candidates to show their authentic self. For those appointed to the board, a comprehensive induction process was provided. The training covered topics such as the basics of charity governance, charity finances for dummies, Equity Diversity and Inclusion, and feminist leadership. At the same time, the rest of the board undertook training on how to be welcoming to new trustees and how to support those with lived experience or from disadvantaged backgrounds to enable them to fully engage with their roles as trustees.
Continuing its journey, WIP adopted a co-chair model in February 2022. This model ensures the board maintains diversity within its leadership with two individuals from different backgrounds. This has enabled more manageable workload, whilst providing support for chairs from under-represented groups who may have less board experience and enabling them to step into the leadership role.
WIP benchmark for diversity is the whole lifecycle of the board, capturing data at recruitment and during the trustee journey through anonymised board surveys. The board of 11 has successfully retained all six trustees recruited through the BSP and open recruitment process, including four trustees with lived experience and two with indirect lived experience. All six of these trustees are still actively engaged, and they each understand their individual power within the space and are proactively supported in using it.
From instituting changes at the board level, WIP has been better able to embed EDI principles throughout the organisation. Following its own successful recruitment process, the board requested all organisational recruitment policies to be reviewed; this paved the way for the adoption of an inclusive practice to shortlist anonymously across all roles, from trustees to staff, that avoids any personal identifying details. After Trustees received training on anti-racism, Black feminism and anti-oppression, they developed a plan for this training to be rolled out across the organisation. Both examples showcase the trustee’s ongoing commitment to EDI and the continuing impact that the board is having across the organisation.
