Dinner Meeting at the Heronston Hotel

At this month’s dinner we were delighted to welcome our guest speaker, Corin Morgan-Armstrong, Director, Invisible Walls.

The Invisible Walls story began back in 2006 at HMP Parc in Bridgend, under the name of Parc Supporting Families whose mission was quite simply to provide support, guidance and tangible help to people in prison, who wanted to rebuild or retain their relationships with their children and loved ones in the community.

Corin established the prison Family Interventions Unit in 2010 at HMP Parc (the first of its kind in the UK) and has worked with corrections in the UK and across five continents to achieve replication of the family model. Corin also designed and established the Invisible Walls Wales service, initially lottery funded in 2011 and incorporated as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company in May 2023

In 2022 Invisible Walls expanded its remit to start delivering support services in visitor centres in five public sector prisons in England and Wales, and in G4S prisons.

For those prisoners who have babies, Invisible Walls provides support for baby’s first visit, giving prisoners the opportunity to interact with their baby.

In his presentation, Corin shared some remarkable facts with us, including:
- 312,000 children have a parent in prison
- an average 500 children per week visit Parc Prison
- prisoners who receive visits have a 52% lower reoffending rate.

After Corin answered questions from members, Brian Murrell gave thanks for a very interesting and insightful presentation.