Shine: Ten Years On
- a Reflection

Shine is, at time of writing, now in its tenth year of operation. We are planning to celebrate this properly in 2023. However, here are just a selection of voices collected to date.

A Partner’s Voice: Access to Industry (when did you first hear of Shine?)

“Well, I was involved in the initial application stage for Shine, and it wasn’t called Shine, then it was called the Women’s PSP and it was back just before Christmas, November 2012. And we all met in the boardroom, in Albany Street, to discuss the opportunity to come together, to offer throughcare support in a completely different way for women, short term prisoners coming back, being liberated from every prison in Scotland or all women’s estates in Scotland and how that would [like] as a Public Sector Partnership, and what the key partners around the table could bring. And that was the first ever initial conversation that we had about women’s mentoring and what it would look like.”

Service Evolution (how have you seen Shine change over the years?)

“I think from the initial stages when it was being evaluated by Ipsos Mori, and Robertson Trust were involved in the first two years, to establishing and launching the name and having an official launch, I think that happened in the autumn of 2013, to see the roles adapted in prison and having the prison-based champion role, seeing movement of women around the estate across Scotland – Grampian, Edinburgh, Greenock, Polmont, Cornton Vale and the changes to the estate, and now we’re going to have these amazing trauma-informed community custodial units and really seeing that informational change , understanding of how women in justice is, what the approaches need to be, the learning, the learning set, how women’s thoughts, feelings and processing is very different to men.”

Circle:

"I think you see it develop in terms of just the experience, the knowledge within the mentors the whole Shine partnership collectively together, in terms of the understanding, what it is we're striving to achieve and what we're wanting to be able to improve upon and the impact that we can have for the woman and families that are being supported. I think it's the depth of knowledge and skills that has been strengthened. I’ve seen that over these last number of years and that has had an impact in terms of our visibility within the communities that we've been working in, but also within the prisons, the experiences of the prison-based champions, just strengthened those partnerships.”