Senedd event marks launch of Invisible Walls Community Interest Company

An event was held today (Friday 7 March 2025) at the Welsh Parliament to celebrate the launch of the Invisible Walls Community Interest Company (IWCIC). It was sponsored by Huw Irranca-Davies, Deputy First Minister of Wales and patron of the IWCIC.

The family support service started in 2006 at G4S-managed HMPYOI Parc in Bridgend, south Wales. The IWCIC will enable more prisoners and their families to access the award-winning service across a range of prisons, including publicly-run and internationally. 

Academics, funders and politicians attended the event as well as representatives from the Ministry of Justice. There was a performance from a local school choir, some of whose members have parents in prison and are supported by Invisible Walls.

G4S has committed to sponsoring the CIC and supplying the team’s office premises and back office support. IWCIC already employs 50 people, providing bespoke services in five public prisons - Cardiff, Usk, Prescoed, Littlehey and Bedford - and three G4S-run prisons.

 

Family days 

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to appropriate contact with a parent and to privacy. The IWCIC is aligned with these principles.

As well as managing the family visitor centres and cafes at the prisons mentioned above, IWCIC hosts family events throughout the year, giving parents and children the opportunity to spend quality time together. Examples of these events include homework clubs, ‘Bricks Beyond Bars’ (a Lego Serious Play adaptation), ‘Language and Play’, parent and toddler groups, baby bathing, and babies’ first visit. 

At these events, staff connect families with community organisations for further support.

Corin Morgan-Armstrong (pictured below), who first developed Invisible Walls and is a director of IWCIC, says: “We seek to champion the rights of the child to maintain positive contact with a parent in prison where it’s appropriate to do so, and enable them to believe in their own future potential.”

School Zone

Another part of Invisible Walls is the School Zone service, first developed in 2014, which enables parents in prison to stay engaged with their children’s education where contact is approved. For example, through the hosting of parents’ evenings inside the prison.

This not only benefits the parents and makes it more likely that they will take up positive opportunities in prison, it also has been proven to improve the wellbeing of children. 

Support for children

Support for children is at the forefront of Invisible Walls given the adverse impact that having a parent in prison can have on their lives – self-harm, anger, behavioural or eating problems can develop as a consequence. 

Isolation and stigma can then be exacerbating factors, as Corin explains: “When a parent goes to prison, people around that family can often end up distancing themselves due to stereotyping and a lack of understanding. Schools are often unaware of what has happened and how to support the children and family; this can make the impact on children harder to deal with.”

Often young children may not be told the full story and will have heard that their dad is working away, for example, in order to try and protect them.This can add to their sense of confusion and isolation when the truth eventually comes out. 

The School Zone services acts as a bridge between the school, prison and families. They deliver training for teachers and other staff members, run sessions where children can talk about their feelings - whether that’s missing their dad or being traumatised from witnessing their arrest - and support parents to explain the truth in a way children and young people can make sense of.

Currently, the School Zone service is engaged with over 450 schools in Wales and started running in England in 2024.

Performance and attendance at school  

Teachers involved in School Zone have reported seeing an improvement in pupils’ performance and engagement; school attendance also improves, a key indicator of academic success.

Teachers say children are less aggressive, interact with their peers more, show a keenness to go outside during break time rather than stay indoors – and produce stories and pictures with positive indicators.

Mentor scheme

A government report (the Farmer Review) published in 2017 highlighted the importance of family contact when it comes to reducing reoffending and breaking intergenerational cycles of crime. Corin was part of that taskforce.

In Wales, IWCIC also runs a mentor scheme which aims to motivate and enable agency among the children, partners and parents in prison through a combination of practical and emotional support. “The support is sincere, principled, and realistic,” Corin says.

Mentors try to help families repair the damage and hurt done when a loved one goes to prison, since lasting change is much more likely to happen when that individual has a strong and supportive family.

Practical support

An initial planning meeting takes place with the mentor, family and various agencies to identify everyone’s needs. Family members will be helped to achieve various goals or access support services: securing employment, finding suitable accommodation, financial help, wellbeing services, school attendance, or helping them with addictive behaviours.

Emotional support

But it is the emotional support that arguably forms the crux of the mentoring service. For instance, one mentor talked about supporting a mum who was struggling to leave the house to go to the park with her children. Initially, she sat on a bench but by the end of the morning was fully engaged and playing with her children. The mentor helped her work through the mixed emotions she was feeling within the wider context of what had happened to the family, so that this simple activity could become a positive and regular part of their routine.

To be an IWCIC mentor, Corin says, the individual needs to be compassionate, empathic, resilient and an excellent problem solver. 

Support for fathers

As well as preparing people leaving prison to find employment and other practical goals, parents in prison also undergo a series of groups and interventions. One key approach is around creating a cognitive dissonance – that uncomfortable feeling people get when their choices are at odds with their values. 

Corin explains why this is so important: “As part of a coping mechanism, people in prison can often become quite detached from their emotions, particularly if they have been through trauma. IWCIC helps people work through this and to own future positive choices that align better with their personal values.

“We explore masculinity and what it means to be a man, father, son and the impact that their actions have had on their family – the person they want to be for their children and the role they want to play in their lives.”

He adds: “When we hear parents in prison talk about their children, although emotional, it helps to spark a motivation to change.”

Whole family approach

Summing up Invisible Walls, Corin says: “We have always championed a ‘whole family’ approach, focusing equally on every family member. It can be easy to become dispirited by the statistics about reoffending rates, but family - whatever that means to the individual - can be the motivation that propels them forward and gives them hope for the future.”