In the next in her series of blogs, our Women’s Involvement Advisor reflects on 2022 - exploring milestones in her personal life, and the achievements she has made supporting and advocating for women affected by the justice system.

At the start of this new year I thought it was a good time to sit and reflect about all of the things that I have achieved over the last year as well as look forward to the year ahead. Time goes so fast and sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for the things that we do on a daily basis, and there are things that we take for granted. 

My milestones on a personal level for the past year is definitely becoming stronger since my car accident. I've been building beautiful relationships with my two girls and my partner, I've travelled to Croatia and Rome, I came to the end of my licence from prison and I got engaged. Life seems really beautiful for me at the moment. Although I have just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease I'm determined to work through this with as much positivity as I can.

In work life I've become a successful support worker, getting things done and making real changes to women's lives, seeing the women I support gain confidence and watching them make some positive choices for themselves. This month I progressed in my role at WHAG and I am now a MEAM (Making Every Adult Matter) worker with Changing Futures. I work with women in the Rochdale area facing multiple disadvantage, using my voice and knowledge through lived experience of domestic abuse and the criminal justice system. 

In my role as Women's Involvement Adviser for One Small Thing I have really enjoyed responding to the government white papers and writing my blogs, which I'm extremely proud of, and recording them so people can listen as well as read. My favourite topic to write about has been racial inequality in the justice system. I think it's important that we talk about these issues not just when something is highlighted in the media, and start doing something as well as talking about it. I think it's really important that I echo the views and feelings of other women who are affected by the Justice system as sometimes their voices can be silenced or unheard. It's a privilege that One Small Thing allow me to use their platform to raise such issues.

This year I think we were recovering from the pandemic and things were getting back to normal. I'm not sure that things are fully back to normal within the female prison estates, I often think about the damage that lockdown has on women and their children. I certainly hope next year allows full access to ROTL (Release on temporary license) and increased family time.

My hopes for 2023 is to continue to raise awareness and talk about how we need to work harder to stop violence against women and girls, and stop sending women to prison for short sentences for non-violent offences.

We need more services to be trained to work in a trauma informed way and to identify and quality mark how trauma informed approaches are being used, especially inside the female estate. We need to speak to the women to see if there's any real difference from the officers. I don't think it's enough to say "yes we have been on trauma informed trained and we're doing it", it needs to be evidence by the women who are being supported.

I am so excited for the opening of Hope Street. My one goal for next year is to definitely go to Hope Street, meet the women and get their views of how being treated differently, like a woman, a human being, a person who matters, can make such a positive change to their lives.

I'm really really excited for what 2023 will bring. Definitely more travel for me and my fiancé and I will continue to work really hard to build better relationships with my children. As always I will use every platform available to talk about the Justice system, racism and violence against women and girls.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year.

Lilly ❤️ 

Written by: Lilly Lewis, Women’s Involvement Advisor at One Small Thing