Into the Wider Community

The Church on Fairford Leys supports the ministry of its minister, Rev Fred Ireland, who serves as Substitute Chaplain at Aylesbury Young Offenders Institution.

Aylesbury Prison currently holds approximately 350 young prisoners aged between 18-21 years.  More than 10% are life sentence prisoners and Rev Ireland is one of a number of chaplains who serve the spiritual and welfare needs of the prison, including those of the staff.

Recently, Rev Ireland is a tutor on the prison’s Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP), an 85 session course in which sex offenders confront their thoughts and actions that led to offending. This treatment programme is one of the most effective offender programmes offered in the prison estate in terms of reducing re-offending rates and demonstrates the churches’ commitment to addressing the many problems facing the wider society.

“The motivation for doing this work” Rev Ireland said “is twofold: we want to help offenders to change and to make our streets and homes a safer place for children and adults alike.  SOTP works and I am proud of the church that allows me time to do it.”

Rev Ireland was nominated by the reward and recognition committee for a special award  in recognition of the outstanding commitment to the SOTP. Learn more about the SOTP, here*.

Rev. Ireland also goes regularly into local schools to talk to students about his prison work. A recent letter from a Year 11 student said: “It was a fantastic assembly and was very informative about the kind of help that prison inmates receive. … Like many people, we all have our preconceptions about prisons and I don’t think anyone realised just how many success stories there are from running courses like you do. The statistics you gave were astonishing … It was nice to hear about the successes of prisons rather than all the negativity you hear in the news.”

 

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