Get Involved
The Butler Trust is enjoying continuing growth and this is thanks in large part to our supporters
The challenge we have set for the years ahead is ambitious. We want to:
- Accelerate the adoption of best practice - extending to many more staff working with offenders in custody and in the community the encouragement and support they need.
- Help staff to make a difference on a national scale to enable offenders to realise their potential on release and reduce the incidence of re-offending.
To achieve these aims we need your help. Whether you would like to give a donation as an individual, through your Charitable Trust, or get your company involved, there are many ways you can help us to break the cycle of re-offending and improve our communities.
Click here to make a donation.
An offender at HMP Askham Grange, a women’s open prison in North Yorkshire, nominated the Family Centre at the prison in 2005.
“…For me the Family Centre has had a huge impact on my time at Askham Grange. The staff at the Family Centre genuinely care about the women here as well as the babies – they are always willing to go the extra mile. They never seem to be just doing the job. I believe that every one of them is exceptional and does an exceptional job."
"…The nursery has provided me with a safe place and people that I felt comfortable leaving my daughter with, which enabled me to start training as a hairdresser. More recently, I have enrolled on a course for IT and computers and the prison has fully and actively supported me in this."
"…Thanks to the advice and encouragement I have received I have become a better parent. Being able to go out to work and complete training courses that I wouldn’t have been able to do before, has given me a huge self confidence boost and a better chance not to re-offend."
"…Then of course there’s the children – like my daughter who has been given a great start and a better chance in life because of the care we have received from these special people.”
Askham Grange subsequently won the 2006 Wates Award for Work with Female Offenders
A total of eight prisoners at HMP Grendon, a unique establishment in which each of six wings operating as an autonomous therapeutic community, provide moving testimony to Prison Officer Paul Johnson for his role as Group Faclitator:
“Paul is the most approachable prison officer I have ever met. He respects others and inspires respect for himself. He is always ready to lend a sympathetic ear and deal with our problems, no matter how insurmountable they may seem. He is a man of kindness, compassion and common sense. He has been instrumental in helping me to break down my barriers and build decent, friendly relationships with prison staff. For this, and many other things, I cannot thank him enough.”
“Officer Paul Johnson became one of the most important people in my life about two years ago. I have never in my life met an officer who actually cared for his charges. That’s not to say he’s not a dedicated, hard working member of the Prison Service but he’s more than that. He is a gentleman who I regard very highly.”
“…As my group facilitator he has taken me back to my traumatic childhood and has guided me when my emotions have got the better of me and never once did I feel alone.”
Paul Johnson subsequently won a 2006 Achievement Award and visited Grande Cache Prison, Canada, as part of his development programme.