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Book review: Coaching Behind Bars – Facing Challenges and Creating Hope in a Women’s Prison

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorDave Wood
Published date01 September 2016
Date01 September 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0264550516668425a
Subject MatterBook reviews
PRB668425 376..381
378
Probation Journal 63(3)
Coaching Behind Bars – Facing Challenges and Creating
Hope in a Women’s Prison
Clare McGregor
Open University Press; 2015; pp. 119; £16.99, pbk
ISBN: 978-0-335-26442-1
Reviewed by: Dave Wood, Founder and Director of Metanoeo CIC
(former Senior Probation Officer)
Coaching Behind Bars is an engaging account of how and why Clare McGregor
took her life coaching practice from business consultancy to HMP Styal (women’s
prison). Having made the move from probation to life coaching the dis-
advantaged, troubled and troublesome myself, I was delighted by the publication
of this book. Like Clare, I also believe, ‘coaching should not just be for managers
and people with money to spare’ (p. 3). However, whilst Clare expresses this
eloquently and with a real personal touch, I’ve found myself talking to partner
agencies about this being an opportunity to develop liberation of the working
classes!
The book is divided into 11 easy-to-read chapters. Clare discusses her experi-
ences at Styal, the scope of coaching, the issues and context of her coachees and
finishes by directing readers as to how and where they can get involved. The book is
part of a wider series of publications written primarily for coaching practitioners.
With this in mind, the series editor exclaims in the foreword:
many people will link coaching with a high value service for highly paid executi-
ves . . . Among Clare’s many case studies there are women you will recognise as hav-
ing similar problems to those senior executives with whom you usually work. (p. xiii)
In terms of a probation readership, this is perhaps the difficulty of the book. The
chapters have a great deal of content expressing what it’s like to be in a prison, and
readers may feel overly familiar with this already. However, I would urge probation
practitioners to engage with this element of the content all the more. Having had 13
years of experience in probation, I remember how easy it could be to become over-
familiar with the...

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