“The StandOut Magic”

Anyone who has been in a StandOut classroom will tell you that there’s something special about it, magical even. But it’s difficult to put your finger on what that is. Joe Tarbert, Programmes Manager at StandOut, puts into words what that “magic” looks - and feels - like to him.

“The StandOut Magic”. When I joined the team in July 2023, it was one of the first things that people wanted to tell me about. Frustratingly, however, nobody could tell me what the “magic” looked like, just that I would have to wait until I “saw it and felt it”. Fortunately, as Programmes Manager, I didn’t have to wait long to get my first taste. Dipping into my first course in HMP Wandsworth in July I watched 10 men give presentations to one another about what they wanted their legacies to be. This is a key moment in week one of our three-week course and is the first time the participants are asked to speak publicly in front of each other and their coaches.

It was unlike anything I had seen before in the criminal justice space, let alone in prison.

The nerves in the room were palpable, including my own, but they were soon replaced by that “hairs on the back of your neck” magic that everyone had been telling me to watch out for. I looked on in awe as each participant came to the front and shared openly about their journeys, their mistakes, their achievements, their families and their hopes for the future. It was unlike anything I had seen before in the criminal justice space, let alone in prison, and left me feeling that what was happening in the StandOut coaching room was truly unique. 

Fast forward to December 2023 and I found myself sitting in a circle in HMP Pentonville’s chapel in the third week of our final course of the year. Those who are not familiar with StandOut’s work often assume that our pre-release work is focused solely on employability. The reality is that we cover a range of challenging topics that we believe will be key to our participants thriving in their lives post-prison. One such topic is mental health and the importance for our participants in looking after their mental health upon release. Although societal attitudes are slowly changing, discussions around mental health still feel taboo, particularly in prison where perceived strength and invulnerability are valuable commodities.

Any misgivings I may have had about how the content would land were quickly dispelled when one of our participants took the opportunity to share about his difficulties with his mental health. He described periods of deep depression, moments of contemplating suicide and a paralysing fear of asking anyone for help. Having come through the other side of his journey he extended an offer to the rest of the men in the room to speak to him if ever they felt low. His offer was met with rapturous applause and triggered wider discussions around being sectioned, the impact of gang life on mental health and the lack of support available in prison for those in crisis.

Being part of that conversation was one of the greatest privileges of my career to date.

Writing now I can say that being part of that conversation was one of the greatest privileges of my career to date. It also exposes a problem that we at StandOut have to grapple with time and time again. How do you quantify the impact of a conversation that may have been the start of someone’s journey to caring for their mental health? How do you show stakeholders that a single conversation might be the difference between someone in crisis reaching out for help in the future, or not? The simple answer is that you can’t. As my colleagues told me in my first week, you have to see and feel the “StandOut magic”. What they didn’t tell me is that once you do, it is something that you will never forget.

Joe Tarbert, Programmes Manager