Meet Megan, a student placement volunteer

"I am on my student placement volunteering with Pact. It took me a while to try find a placement that suited me and when I found Pact, it seemed like the perfect match. Working in prison is something that I plan on doing in the future, so it was the ideal opportunity to see if it was, in fact, something that I would want to pursue, which it definitely is! 

My role as a volunteer can be ringing worried family members as someone they know has just come into prison to reassure them and to answer any questions they may have, helping out on visits and family days and getting people back in contact with their children. We are there to support not just the prisoners but also their families because it can have a negative effect on them having someone they love in prison. 

I was definitely nervous starting because the idea of going into a prison is daunting but everyone made me feel welcome and answered any questions that I had about anything. Working with the service users and their families can be so rewarding; helping them with what seems like a small task means a lot to them and they are very thankful for it, which is really nice. But even bigger tasks such as getting people back in contact with their children or other family members, there’s nothing better than that! 

For some people, it is their first time in prison, so just making sure that they know that we are here to help them even if it is something we directly can’t do, we will always know somebody else in the prison who can help and can try get their problem solved quickly."

I would highly recommend volunteering for pact. Definitely, if you want to help make a difference to someone’s experience in prison, working with pact would be perfect because that’s exactly what it is there for.