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Prison Facilitator

Location: HMP Portland, Dorset

Reporting to: Regional Manager/ Programme Manager

Hours: 21 hours/ 3 days per week Salary: £16,964 (£28,274 FTE)

End date: Fixed term contract until 31/03/2026, with potential but no guarantee of contract renewal)

Role Summary

Shannon Trust’s vision is of a future where everyone can experience the positive impact of learning. As a prison facilitator, your role is to make this a reality by ensuring the successful delivery of the Shannon Trust reading and maths programme within your prison. You will be working onsite at the prison and will work closely with people in prison, prison officers, prison education staff, Shannon Trust volunteers and your programme and regional manager. 

Core objectives of the role:

• To raise awareness of the Shannon Trust programme, encouraging referrals from staff and people in prison and/or on probation.
• To grow the programme, ensuring potential learners are identified and have access to the Shannon Trust programme throughout the prison.
• To ensure mentors are trained, equipped and supported to deliver the reading and numeracy programme.
• To collect and collate data and utilise various IT systems to ensure effective delivery, monitoring and evaluation.
• Provide initial point of contact support and supervision to Shannon Trust volunteers in your prison.
• To independently manage and grow a prison-based programme, including making key decisions on day-to-day operations, volunteer coordination, and the recruitment and support of mentors.
• To identify challenges, opportunities, innovative solutions and ensure the programme's success with minimal direct supervision.

Our Values

At Shannon Trust we value the individual. We are supportive and non-judgmental – with our learners, mentors, volunteers and each other. We work with many people across the criminal justice system and beyond, supporting them to improve their basic literacy and numeracy skills. Developing those skills is critical in reducing re-offending and improving life chances. We want to take every step possible to encourage those with lived experience into employment.

We are an accredited ‘Ban the Box’ employer, meaning we do not ask applicants to declare convictions at the application or interview stage. We only ask for this information where necessary for the role, and not until after an offer of employment has been made. If a role involves prison security vetting, it's important to acknowledge that this process can involve lengthy wait times for the vetting to be completed, particularly for candidates with lived experience. At Shannon Trust, we're here to stand by our candidates, offering support every step of the way.

Job Description

Programme planning and delivery

• Create and maintain a prison action plan aimed at growing the programme and meeting the identified need.

• Hold responsibility for programme performance in your prison. Through effective programme management, resource management, planning and prioritisation, work with your regional manager/team manager and volunteer support teams to ensure each prison is on track to meet and, where possible, exceed its objectives and targets.

• Identify and troubleshoot operational challenges, such as security clearance delays or access issues, ensuring that our programmes continue to function effectively.

• Developing creative solutions in collaboration with prison staff is essential to maintaining a consistent delivery of our programmes.

• Work in partnership with induction officers, education providers, mentor coordinators and other agencies to raise awareness of the programme, increase referrals and achieve a ‘whole prison’ approach to delivery.

• Identify learners and mentors transferring between prisons and ensure ongoing support.

• Identify potential learners and hard to engage people in prison and/or on probation, ensuring they are offered the programme and matched to appropriate mentors.

• Working with wing officers and education, identify potential mentors and ensure they have access to Shannon Trust mentor training and ongoing support, development and supervision, ensuring sufficient numbers of mentors to meet demand. Work with prison security to ensure clearance for the role.

• Recruit a mentor coordinator to support delivery, where this is possible.

• Ensure systems are in place for mentors and learners to be unlocked for Shannon Trust sessions and able to meet in a suitable learning environment. Work with prison security to ensure clearance for the role. 

• Recruit a mentor coordinator to support delivery, where this is possible.

• Ensure systems are in place for mentors and learners to be unlocked for Shannon Trust sessions and able to meet in a suitable learning environment. Work with allocations/activity hubs/education/library and other areas to enable learners to have access to their mentors during the core day.

• Ensure learners have access to sufficient learning resources to include books, manuals, videos and digital programmes as appropriate.

• Work in line with Shannon Trust’s ethos of ‘learner choice’, ensuring multiple options for learning are available.

• Ensure quality programme delivery by ensuring organisational standards are being met, seeking ideas and opportunities for improvements. Share best practice and learning with other prisons to drive up standards and encourage innovation across the organisation.

• Develop solutions to overcome operational challenge

Reporting

• Contribute to effective contract management and delivery by ensuring that targets are met, and performance metrics are achieved. This includes monitoring and reporting on KPIs related to learner progression, mentor engagement, and overall programme success.

• Collaborate with the programme manager to ensure contractual obligations are met and participate in the preparation of quarterly and annual reports as required.

• Utilise systems (Nomis, Curious, Shannon Trust database/spreadsheets) to record and submit learner progression data and mentor training achievements.

• Provide relevant and timely information about the reading programme to the prison’s learning and skills manager and Shannon Trust’s regional manager/team manager.

• Contribute to the contract and quarterly reports and appropriate sharing of case studies.

• Monitor progress against targets in relation to numbers of new and retained learners. 

Partnerships

• Work in partnership with the prison’s Shannon Trust volunteer, to ensure mentor training is delivered and mentors are supported in their roles.

• Provide first line support and supervision to prison volunteers at your establishment, utilising Shannon Trust’s volunteer management system to record volunteer activity, and escalate any performance issues as appropriate.

• Work in partnership with prison staff, to include officers and staff from the library, education department and other agencies within the prison.

• Work in partnership with Shannon Trust mentors, ensuring they are kept up to date with Shannon Trust news, and that they have the opportunity to share ideas and feedback to the organisation.

• Facilitate a ‘feedback loop’ to ensure themes from mentor meetings and area meetings feed into organisational decision making, and that organisational updates are shared appropriately with regional teams.

• Work with mentors, prison SMT, prison partners and Shannon Trust volunteers to implement and maintain effective communication across the prison. Represent Shannon Trust at appropriate meetings and events.

• Work in partnership with relevant Shannon Trust criminal justice services in the community to develop referral pathways for mentors and learners to continue learning with Shannon Trust through the gate where appropriate.

Other

• Put the learner at the heart of what you do, actively contribute to a culture of learning, reflection, teamwork and development, in line with the organisation’s values.

• Participate in regular one-to-ones and annual reviews, contributing to the identification of objectives and professional development goals.

• Carry out health and safety responsibilities in accordance with the Health & Safety Policy.

• To undertake other duties and responsibilities commensurate with the role, as may be reasonably required by Shannon Trust or as a mutually agreed development opportunity. This document will be subject to periodic review in consultation with the job holder.

• Protecting Children and Vulnerable Adults is a core responsibility of all staff. Staff are expected to alert their line manager to any concerns they may have regarding the abuse or inappropriate treatment of a Child or Young Person, or Vulnerable Adults.

Personal Specification

Experience

Essential requirements

• Demonstrable experience/proven track record of working towards and achieving contractual targets.

• Demonstrate the ability to monitor own contractual performance and be proactive in implemented targeted solutions.

• The ability to interpret data to understand it relates to contractual performance

• Experience managing a wide range of relationships at different levels, including building partnerships and working collaboratively with colleagues and external agencies.

Desirable requirements

• Previous lived experience and/or employment / volunteering experience in the criminal justice system in a challenging environment (prison, probation or voluntary sector)

• Experience of peer-led services, peer mentoring programmes and / or literacy and numeracy programmes.

• Programme delivery experience

Skills and Abilities

Essential requirements

• Ability to confidently work independently and autonomously

• Good organisational and planning skills • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to adjust your communication style to different audiences, including people in prison and/or on probation, volunteers, prison governors and staff.

• Ability to inspire, support and lead a team of peer mentors

• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to navigate operational constraints and implement practical solution

• Good time management skills, with the ability to prioritise your workload, work autonomously and balance the needs of multiple programmes and priorities.

• Able to build positive relationships throughout the prison and within Shannon Trust.

• Ability to write clear, succinct reports, emails and other key communications

• Ability to work in a results focused way, with a focus on the best outcomes for learners.

• Ability to foster and demonstrate the values, aims and objectives of Shannon Trust in your work.

• Ability to demonstrate the appropriate attributes required to facilitate programmes within a prison environment.

Knowledge and Understanding

Essential requirements

• Understanding of contract management and ability to report on performance metrics and contribute to ensuring compliance with contractual obligations.

• Understanding of the reasons why adults might not be able to read, and the personal and practical barriers to engaging with education faced by people in prison and the community.

• Knowledge and understanding of the criminal justice system.

Technical and Qualifications

Essential requirements

• IT literate and comfortable navigating a variety of different IT systems. 

• Experience of using common Microsoft Office tools such as Excel, Word and Outlook.

Desirable requirements

• Experience using databases for effective record keeping.

Personal Characteristics

Essential requirements

• Proactive, solution focused, patient and professional.

• Resilient and adaptable, with a calm and solution-oriented approach to working in challenging environments.

• Performance minded and results orientated, with learners at the heart of what you do.

• Non-judgemental attitude towards working with people in prison and/or on probation. Committed to anti discriminatory and inclusive working practices.

• Approachable and able to form positive working relationships.

• The right to work in the UK.

• Able to travel independently to designated prison and occasional staff meetings in a central location.

• Appointment will be dependent upon successful security vetting by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.