Our partnership with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and Practice Plus Group
This week, our founder Rebecca Boden attended one of Unlock Drama’s Recovery Project performances at HMP Stocken — and it was a powerful reminder of how creativity can directly support patient safety and harm reduction across the prison estate.
Delivered through our Health in Justice (HiJ) strand in partnership with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and Practice Plus Group, the project focuses on substance misuse and recovery, using Applied Theatre to explore real-life experiences and co-design safer, healthier responses from those who live them every day.
A peer-led performance with purpose
The participants devised and performed a moving play following the story of a young man who loses both his brother and his own life to drugs. Through their storytelling, they examined the ripple effects of substance misuse — the triggers, the consequences, and the vital question: what can we do to reduce harm and keep people safe inside our prisons?
The audience included commissioners, regional managers, Heads of Healthcare and Drug Strategy, and staff from across the establishment — reflecting growing recognition that patient safety in custody depends on psychological as well as physical wellbeing.
How Applied Theatre supports patient safety
Unlock Drama’s projects are structured to enhance safety for both residents and staff. By providing structured, meaningful group activity, they reduce boredom — a major contributing factor to drug use, conflict, and self-harm.
Our approach reduces risk and strengthens patient safety through:
- Purposeful activity and engagement: Sessions give participants something to look forward to, work towards, and take pride in. While on our projects, participants consistently remain drug-free, demonstrating how creativity and focus directly support recovery and safer regimes.
- Reducing boredom-linked risk: Many participants tell us that substance misuse often begins from boredom and lack of purpose. Our projects fill that gap with connection, achievement, and shared responsibility — protective factors that keep people safer and more stable.
- Reducing staff pressure: While participants are engaged in our structured, supervised workshops, staff are freed to manage more pressing clinical or operational duties. This supports overall regime safety and improves relationships between teams.
- Developing consequential thinking: Our Consequential Thinking sessions rehearse alternative, safer outcomes — helping participants strengthen decision-making and reduce impulsive, high-risk behaviour.
- Improving emotional regulation and communication: Theatre-based work enhances empathy and self-awareness, leading to fewer incidents and more constructive interactions on the wing.
- Encouraging disclosure and help-seeking: The creative space allows participants to voice experiences safely, increasing trust and early identification of wellbeing risks.
- Aligning with operational flow: Sessions are designed to fit around unlocks, roll checks, and movements, ensuring safety and minimal disruption to the daily regime.
Real impact, real voices
During the post-show discussion, one participant described the process as “cathartic — it helped me undo past trauma, find self-belief, and rebuild my confidence.”
Another said the project should be “a full-time residency in every prison.”
Several spoke about how they now use the “pause and replay” method from our workshops to de-escalate conflict on the wing — a tangible example of harm-reduction learning embedded in daily life.
Staff attending the event commented on the positive impact of seeing participants engaged, settled, and motivated — a visible reduction in restlessness, anxiety, and volatility.
Why this matters
In today’s commissioning landscape, Patient Safety and Harm Reduction are central priorities across Health and Justice. Unlock Drama’s Recovery Projects directly contribute to these outcomes by:
- Reducing boredom, substance misuse, and associated risk-taking
- Improving emotional wellbeing and communication
- Supporting stability and recovery engagement
- Relieving staff pressure through structured group activity
- Strengthening protective factors linked to rehabilitation and safer environments
When people are engaged, valued, and working towards something meaningful, they’re less likely to harm themselves or others — and far more likely to build resilience, connection, and change.
Partner with us
If you’re commissioning or delivering within Health in Justice and are seeking innovative, measurable approaches to patient safety and harm reduction, we’d love to collaborate.
