A DARTMOOR Prison officer has won a national Justice Award for her work in developing a scheme which has helped prisoners to maintain family bonds. Sharon Berry set up the Storybook Dad project in 2002, where prisoners record bedtime stories for their children to listen to at home, and since then has raised £275,000 to expand the department with new facilities and digital equipment. Originally recording and editing tapes in her spare time, Sharon now trains prisoners in editing. The service has been extended to 28 other prisons in England and Wales. She said: ?We have two editing suites in Dartmoor where out we can take out any mistakes and add sound effects like animal noises.? ?Other prisons send us mini disks, including four women?s prisons, and we edit them here. ?In time, the aim is for other prisons to have their own equipment because with 130 jails in the country we would not be able to do all the work here.? Sharon has a team of eleven working on the project, including six prisoners who are using their training towards a recognised qualification. ?From a very small set-up it is now quite a production line,? said Sharon. ?It is a lifeline for a lot of prisoners. They cannot do a lot for their children in prison, but this is something tangible and it helps to reduce separation anxiety. ?For the men that come to us they miss their children more than anything else and they want to be better people. They want to try and do their best for their children and hopefully their children will not end up where they are.? The prison officer said the children got great pleasure out of the CDs and some even took them into school and talked about them. The project, which is now registered as a charity, has won three awards this year and although the justice award ?for outstanding contribution to working with offenders? was specifically for Sharon, she said it was very much a team effort. ?It is such a rewarding job and so positive because I know how much it means to the prisoners, their families and their children,? she added. Eleven winners were chosen from more than 300 nominations in various different categories. The awards were presented by Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland at a ceremony hosted by BBC Crimewatch presenter Fiona Bruce in London. Baroness Scotland said: ?There are many thousands of unsung heroes in our criminal justice system, who make a real difference to the quality of life in our communities every day. ?These awards are a chance to thank just a few of those people. They reward those who have gone the extra mile to fight crime and make our criminal justice system work.?
