Student volunteering: an invaluable experience

Cheryl has been volunteering with us since 2023. Here she shares her experience of befriending whilst studying. 

I'm very proud to be a Volunteer with New Bridge and my Course Director was very complimentary when I told him I had joined them.  I am a mature student on the BPC (Bar Practice Course) and became involved with New Bridge after seeing an email from my university publicising a Zoom talk with the Vice President of New Bridge, the Criminologist, Professor David Wilson and asking us to sign up if we were interested.  I am hoping to work in Crime in the CPS once I graduate and have watched Professor Wilson in many True Crime programmes.  I even have one of his books.   I attended the online talk and applied to join New Bridge the very next day.  After going through the training, I have now been a Volunteer Befriender for getting on for two years.

Fitting the letter writing into my studies was quite easy really.  I love writing letters so that part wasn't really a big issue.  What I felt more was a great sense of responsibility as the prisoners I chose to befriend have asked to be part of the service, meaning that they want contact and the support that New Bridge can offer and are waiting for letters to arrive, so I felt it was very important to follow through and actually write the letters and be reliable and consistent.  

It doesn't take up a great deal of time each month to be honest.  However, I do try and reply to prisoners within a couple of days of receiving a letter from them so that I don’t forget due to other commitments, as I don’t want them to be waiting for me to respond.  I do tell them to take their time in writing to me as I don't want them to feel pressured into writing back straight away, but I just like to respond as quickly as possible.

I currently have three prisoners to whom I am writing and apart from feeling I am helping to give prisoners who don't have any contact with the "outside world" as it were, it is giving me a personal insight to what prisoners actually endure during their time spent inside.  These people have committed crimes and are rightly in prison, however, I feel it is important to remember that many of these inmates have suffered mental health issues, or medical issues, and many come from deprived backgrounds, poverty and broken homes.  This is meant in no way to excuse their crimes - actions have consequences and they must pay their debt to society for the wrongs they have committed (we must also take into account that some of their victims may never recover from the effects of the crimes committed against them).  However, I do believe that prison should come three-fold: punishment for the crimes they have committed, education and treatment to try and help them become better, more productive citizens on their release, and rehabilitation to assist them in adjusting to their new lives on the outside once released back into the community.

I enjoy writing letters generally and love receiving them (much more personal than emails)  and I would like to think that this experience is helping me to appreciate the situation prisoners find themselves in once they fall foul of the Criminal Justice System and learn more about it myself and I think very carefully about the wording I use in my letters and try to be supportive, sensitive and empathetic.  I’m looking forward to organising my first visit to the prisoner I’ve been befriending the longest – it will be great to put a face to the name after exchanging so many letters.  I hope I am helping a little. 

For me, as a student who is interested in working in Crime, I feel it is an invaluable experience.  I write to prisoners with whom I would never have had any contact with otherwise and it gives me an insight to real people who have to cope with life behind bars.  In addition to which I feel we at New Bridge offer a really important befriending service to prisoners who find themselves isolated with little or no contact with the outside world.  I would definitely recommend becoming a Volunteer to anyone who was considering it.

If Cheryl has inspired you to volunteer, you can sign up here: https://www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk/pages/category/apply-now

If you would like to be kept up to date with the latest news and development at New Bridge you can sign up for our mailing list here: https://www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk/forms/mailing-list

You can help us continue supporting people in prison via our winter appeal, with a donation of as little as £10: https://www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk/winter-appeal