Peer support initiatives for adult social care in prisons in England and Wales
Many adult prisoners need help with daily tasks, and in some cases prison ‘buddies’ help others with things like cleaning cells and collecting meals. But there's no research looking into this yet, so we don't yet know whether it's effective or how to measure that. This NIHR RSET project looks into these issues.
This is a NIHR-funded project conducted by the Rapid Service Evaluation Team, a collaboration between the Nuffield Trust, UCL, University of Cambridge, and supported by EP:IC consultants.
This project was identified as part of the work from the ‘Identification and prioritisation of innovations in adult social care and social work’ project undertaken in 2019.
This project is now complete.
Below we share a summary of preliminary findings. However, our findings are currently being peer-reviewed for publication and will be shared below in due course.
Summary
The problem
- Many adult prisoners need social care support (help with daily tasks).
- Some prisoners (called ‘buddies’) help others with tasks such as cleaning their cells and collecting meals.
- No research has looked into this, meaning that we don’t know what different people think of peer supported social care, how it works and how to measure it.
What we looked at
We looked at social care peer support in prisons in England and Wales, including:
- What support is provided
- How peer support services are used
- How people feel about these services
- How we could measure impact and cost of these services
What we did
- We looked at existing evidence.
- We spoke with 20 people in charge of these services in 18 prisons, seven staff members, 18 ‘buddies’ and 19 prisoners who get help in five prisons.
- We held seven interviews and a workshop with 13 people from different organisations (such as His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), local charities).
What we found
- Many prisons have ‘buddies’ who help with non-personal social care tasks (such as cleaning cells).
- Services vary in different prisons (e.g. due to the type of prison, partnerships between local authorities and prisons).
- Staff, buddies and recipients liked and valued peer supported social care, but identified issues such as a lack of training for peers and staff.
- Peer support has benefits, such as saving staff time, skills for buddies and promoting independence for those receiving support.
- There are risks for recipients and buddies (for example bullying, burden, risks of being exploited).
- There aren’t enough data to tell whether services work or save money.
- We suggest what data need to be collected to evaluate services in future.
Conclusion
These services are well received, but to overcome challenges we need:
- National guidelines on how they should be used.
- Regular monitoring.
Outputs
Videos
An animated video produced in collaboration with CC Animation studio.
Articles
Interviews
Published papers
Walton, H, Tomini, S.M., Ng, P.L. & Fulop, N.J. (2022) How is social care provided in UK adult prisons? British Journal of Social Care (published in August 2022)
Summary of findings
Peer support for adult social care in prisons in England and Wales, September 2023 – Slide set summary
Presentations
- HSRUK 2023 Conference workshop session: Peer support services in adult prisons: A systematic scoping review – Watch here
- 10th Health and Justice Summit, October 2023 - Poster
Project team
This evaluation was a collaboration between University College London, Nuffield Trust, University of Cambridge and supported by EP:IC consultants.
The project team included:
- Naomi Fulop
- Holly Walton
- Chris Sherlaw-Johnson
- Efthalia Massou
- Stephen Morris
- Lucy Wainwright (EP:IC consultants)
- Donna Gipson (EP:IC consultants)
- Paula Harriott (EP:IC consultants)
- Stephen Riley (EP:IC consultants)
- Pei Li Ng