The Locked up Living Podcast: Surviving and thriving in prisons and other challenging environments

Belinda is a Professor of Forensic Psychology. She is Research Director of the Centre of Crime, Offending, Prevention and Engagement (COPE), and part of the Sexual Offences, Crime and Misconduct Research Unit a at Nottingham Trent University. Working with people with lived experience, she seeks to make a difference in the world by designing and undertaking mixed-method research to inform and provide evidence-based practice and policy. Her primary field is sexual offending, but she also has a particular interest in life after prison and the reintegration of people into the community.

Belinda’s primary area of research interest is sexual offending but she’s also been very committed to exploring what life is like for people after they leave prison and how they re-integrate.  She is co-founder and previously a trustee of the Safer Living Foundation, a charity set up in 2014 to prevent further sexual offences. The charity won the Robin Corbett Award for prisoner rehabilitation in 2015 and  was awarded the Third Sector Charity of the Year in 2019.

Dr Jenny Mackay is Principal Lecturer (forensic psychology) at Nottingham Trent University, with responsibility for outreach and student volunteering, Associate Course Leader for MSc Forensic Mental Health, Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Chartered Psychologist. She teaches on both the undergraduate and postgraduate psychology courses on the following modules:

Before joining NTU, Dr Jenny Mackay conducted her PhD titled, 'Comparing the treatment needs of women and men who perpetrate intimate partner violence'. Jenny currently holds Associate Fellow status with the Higher Education Academy, and is working towards Fellowship.

Prior to this, Jenny has spent her career in predominantly practitioner roles, working with vulnerable clients in a range of settings, both forensic and non-forensic. She has delivered substance misuse work, offending behaviour programmes and psychological one-to-one work in prisons with adults and young adults. She has worked in a Secure Children's Home with 10-17 year olds who have offended or who are considered 'at risk'. Jenny also gained experience carrying out in-depth functional analyses and was trained to write and evaluate Positive Behaviour Support plans whilst working as a Behavioural Clinical Specialist for the NHS with adults with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. Jenny has also worked for the Probation Service, as a Project and Policy officer for an adult education research charity and has delivered workshops for expectant and new parents.

Jenny is primarily interested in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, particularly understanding the evidence base of pathways to perpetration and how these might inform interventions. She is particularly interested in how women come to perpetrate IPV and the psychological mechanisms that underpin this.

Jenny is interested in policy and practice development in this area, specifically, how interventions for those who have perpetrated can be developed to reflect our most up-to-date understanding of the evidence base.

Ad Vingerhoets  is emeritus professor of Emotions and Wellbeing. He was affiliated with the Department of Medical & Clinical Psychology of Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands. His areas of expertise are stress and emotions, and quality of life. In particular, his research on leisure sickness, homesickness and nostalgia, but especially crying, attracted much international media attention.

In addition to his publications in academic journals and books (>400), he also wrote some popular Dutch books on, among other subjects, love, crying, and, very recently, the functions of emotions in general.

Dr Rina Bajaj is a Chartered Counselling Psychologist. She holds a first-class BA (Hons) in Psychology and a Doctorate (DPsych) in Counselling Psychology. Rina has over 15 years of experience and practices across London, UK.  In 2017, she founded her private consultancy, Rina Bajaj Ltd, which offers a specialist therapeutic service for adults and young people providing counselling, CBT, clinical supervision, EMDR therapy, couples/relationship therapy, business consultation and coaching. She has worked with many corporate companies, including several universities, providing workshops and training on areas including staff well-being, mental health awareness, mindfulness and stress management.

She is also well voiced on cultural issues and, as a young Asian woman, she is interested in how we define ourselves and what is considered “acceptable” in our society. Rina is also an expert on current issues and works with clients who experience anxiety, trauma and depression, amongst other common mental health concerns.

Dr Rina Bajaj has worked with many interesting clients over the years including YouTube stars, up and coming young celebrities, Reality TV personalities, high net worth individuals, athletes and musicians/artists. Having grown up with musicians in the family this is an area she has great insight to. Rina is naturally very empathetic and always wanted to be in a profession that could support people to change in a positive way.  She is a great believer in experiencing new things and believes that if she asks her clients to step out of their comfort zone, then she must be prepared to do the same.

Rina is a regular contributor to national media and is a confident presenter having spoken at national emotional wellbeing conferences aimed at a range of professionals. Recent media contribitions can be viewed via: linkt.ree/drrinabajaj

She is so passionate about mental health and wellbeing, that she has dedicated her instagram page to raising awareness of related issues. She hosts a regular instagram live session called “Chat with Dr Rina”, where she inteviews a variety of guests about their life experiences and how they take care of their own wellbeing

She is currently writing a self-empowerment book about the relationship that we have with ourselves as well as other people, which will be available soon. She likens it to having a psychologist in your pocket. The book will include practical activities and advice on how to challenge and work on relationships and self-image.

In her spare time Rina likes to focus on all aspects of her wellbeing. She shares a holistic approach to life and makes time for meditation, travelling, self-development, boxing and body pump!

Follow Dr Rina Bajaj on social media channels:

Facebook: DrRinaBajaj

Instagram @Dr.Rina.Bajaj

Twitter: @DrRinaBajaj

YouTube: Dr Rina Bajaj

tiktok@drrina8

After starting out in Law Michelle moved to become a forensic psychologist. In this conversation she tells us about the things she notices about being in a prison, how important support and supervision is and how some professions are denied this passage to mental health and wellbeing.

Michelle Smith is a Chartered & Registered Forensic Psychologist who has worked across a range of forensic settings over the past 30 years including prisons, probation, secure hospital settings (both independent sector and NHS), and community settings. She currently works part time as an Associate Professor at the University of Lincoln and her teaching, research and ongoing independent professional practice centres on the development of trauma-informed ways of working in criminal justice, health and social care systems. This includes a focus on the impact on staff of such work and the development & maintenance of resilience and professional boundary management through reflective processes and systems.

For more detail please see book chapter mentioned in podcast: 

Smith, M. (2022). The Impact on staff of Trauma-Informed work in forensic settings. In P. Wilmott & L. Jones (Eds), Trauma-Informed Forensic Practice (pp. 363-379). Routledge. 

Further reading on some of the models mentioned in podcast: 

Boundary Seesaw Model 

Hamilton, L. ( 2010 ). The boundary seesaw model: Good fences make for good neighbours . In A. Tennant &K. Howells(Eds), Using time not doing time (pp. 181 – 194 ). Wiley- Blackwell . 

Model of Dynamic Adaptation  

Clarke ,J.( 2004 ). The psychosocial impact on facilitators of working therapeutically with sex off enders: An experimental study (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of York . 

Clarke ,J.( 2013 ). The resilient practitioner . In J. Clarke & P. Wilson (Eds), Forensic psychology in practice: A practitioners handbook (pp. 220 – 239 ). Palgrave MacMillan .  

Human Learning Systems Approach (the brain fog moment!) 

Lowe, T., French, M., Hawkins, M., Hesselgreaves, H., & Wilson, R. (2021).  New developments: Responding to complexity in public services: The human learning systems approach. Routledge. 

Check out the transcript over on substack: https://lockedupliving.substack.com/p/how-does-working-in-a-trama-informed

In this 15 minute clip we hear from Eden who describes the traumatic consequences of whistleblowing, James Wong who tells us about the importance of engaging young men with a sense of power and creativity to prevent their criminalisation, Dan Lawrence talking about the use of restrictive practices in secure hospitals, and Dean Kingham a solicitor who represents some of societies' most scorned people discussing why prison doesn't work.

This is our 15 minute submission for the Wellbeing section of the British Podcast awards. In our podcasts we are always seeking positive experiences to balance some of the more damaging or corrosive experiences we encounter.  Our well-being entry may be a quirky take but its based in real-life applications of psychological principles

Including Hugh Venables discussing how to journal and why its so good for our mental health, Shona Herron describing her research into emptiness, Joe Sabien on harnessing awe at the sea to help marginalised people heal and Caroline Purvey on the importance of releasing the psoas muscle for emotional and physical well-being.

So many great guests and conversations to choose from.  But we needed a conversation that could be distilled down to 15 minutes.

We chose Shona for our submission to the British Podcast Awards for the Interview category. This is a short clip where Shona describes the emotional impact of her work with the children of imprisoned parents. It was a powerful interview and we found it difficult to distill it down to 15 minutes. Let us know what you think. Maybe you'd have chosen differently?

Sarah J Naylor, The Midlife Success Coach

“Making Midlife Magical!”

Sarah helps midlife women in their 40s and 50s, rediscover, or even discover who they are as they reach this magical midpoint in their lives.  

She helps them put some ‘sass in their ass’ and propel themselves forward with strength and style.

In fact, she’s on a mission to get mid-life women enjoying ALL aspects of their life again and that includes loving and valuing themselves, being cared for, enjoying great sex, kick-starting their careers, and believing that their age, and every beautiful wrinkle, brings with it wisdom and experience.

Age, she states, is their superpower!

Sarah encourages facilitating a growth mindset approach, positive psychology, solution-focused outcome thinking, shifts in perspective, energy alignment, spirituality and so much more, including her APE Mindset™ Methodology to help women navigate their way through their midlife and all the changes that take place: personally, and professionally.

At 57, Sarah has personally navigated a raft of personal and professional changes including divorce (after 20 years), relationship breakdowns, online dating, finding love, embracing entrepreneurship at 43, a flood of personal development, and training, resulting in becoming a qualified coach, an Amazon number one best-selling author, speaker, business owner, and Harnessing Happiness podcast host, which has had in excess of 37K global downloads in over 129 countries.. 

If you would like to know more about Sarah please head over to her website www.sarahjnaylor.com or please do connect with her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjnaylor/

Todays conversation is with Vincent McGovern, Vincent works part time as a shared parenting campaigner. He is also Chair of Central and North London Branches of Families Need Fathers, a Shared Parenting Charity. He has had 18 inquiries and five Ombudsman (including 3 Parliamentary & Health Services Ombudsman) investigations into malpracticing children's services all ending with findings in his favour including compensation. He addressed x2 the Euro Parliament Petitions Commission and forced the first inspection of UK family law by the EU comm. The video is at vincentmcgovern.com.