Helping prisoners become better parents
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An innovative scheme in Scotland is helping dads in prison become better parents. Myra Anubi visits Barlinnie jail in Glasgow to meet the prisoners taking part. First they are taught parenting skills and then their children are brought into the jail for sessions of active physical play. Supporters of the programme say it is not just about benefits for prisoners - it is helping to create strong family bonds which might then reduce rates of reoffending. It is based on a successful scheme in Australia called Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids. This was set up to get people fit and tackle high levels of obesity in the wider population. We talk to the founder who explains how it has improved the lives of hundreds of fathers and their families. This episode of the documentary comes from People Fixing The World, looking at brilliant solutions to the world's problems.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Myra Anubi and I host the People Fixing the World podcast, looking at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them. |
| 0:22.0 | From using poetry to make doctors more empathetic to how low-cost incubators are saving premature babies. |
| 0:28.8 | You can listen and subscribe by searching for people fixing the world wherever you got this podcast. |
| 0:34.8 | In this bonus episode, I take you behind prison walls to hear about |
| 0:39.4 | a project that's keeping families together while the fathers are behind bars. |
| 0:44.2 | People fixing the world. |
| 0:51.7 | I'm Myra Anubi and this is People Fixing the World from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:56.7 | where we go above and beyond to find new ways to tackle old problems. |
| 1:01.8 | Now this week, our focus is on fathers and how they can play a bigger role in their children's lives |
| 1:07.5 | with a groundbreaking solution in a place you would not expect. A prison. |
| 1:17.0 | There you go. Thank you. I've just come through security and I am inside the largest prison in |
| 1:23.9 | Scotland. Barlini Prison is home to around 1,300 men, serving a prison sentence for |
| 1:30.1 | everything from petty crime to murder. It's supposed to be a really tough place. In fact, over the |
| 1:35.6 | years, some prisoners have nicknamed it Bar Hell. Now, it's an old Victorian building with |
| 1:41.9 | lots of high walls and barbed wire. |
| 1:45.2 | It's been heaped in history. |
| 1:46.5 | It's obviously 200 years or whatever. |
| 1:49.1 | It's got five separate halls. |
| 1:51.1 | So it's quite a large community, I would say. |
| 1:53.9 | Charlie Ross has been a prison officer here for over 30 years. |
| 1:58.2 | He's almost part of the furniture. |
... |
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