News
Six Book Challenge named as finalist
The Six Book Challenge was named as a finalist for the 2009 Libraries Change Lives Award run by CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, at a ceremony on 15 July held at the Umbrella conference at the University of Hertfordshire. Sir Andrew Motion presented The Reading Agency with a framed certificate and £2000 prize money which will go towards further impact research for the Six Book Challenge.
The Six Book Challenge was represented at the ceremony by three practitioners from HMP YOI Brinsford who kindly hosted the judges' visit back in May - Jean Reed, Prison Library Service Young Offenders Advisor, Staffordshire County Council and her colleagues Alan Smith, Library Supervisor, and Joan Morgan, Literacy Co-ordinator, from HMP YOI Brinsford. They talked about the impact of the Challenge on lads in the prison, many of whom had previously read very little.
For the second year running, Alan has run the Challenge over a concentrated period of a few weeks to keep the lads focused and motivated. Working closely with Joan, his library assistant Adeline and library orderly Calum, he encouraged 68 lads to sign up this year. Twelve completed six books, three of whom have since left the prison. Another 11 didn't get a chance to finish because they left or moved on to another prison - proving the point that we have to get the Challenge running across all prisons! We're really grateful to Brinsford and Staffordshire Libraries for their support for our application.
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