POTENTIAL UNLOCKED: Examining the role of hope in the journey of desistance

This presentation shares the research findings from a 3 year Arts Council funded prison arts project that was delivered by Soft Touch, Leicester. The project ran in HMP Leicester and HMP Stocken from 2018 - 2021. The research engaged young offenders with mental health conditions in creating visual artwork for public exhibition and publication. Insight into mental health recovery is gained through semi-structured interviews with participants. Participant well-being is coded through the CHIME framework. Our findings are that arts workshops that are co-productive lead to the development of hope in participants with positive benefits to mental heath and desistance. This presentation also outlines some future directions for research which focus on the modality of process rather than outcomes, paying close attention to the nature of co-production in carceral contexts.