Parallel Workshops
Invisible Walls, a registered not-for-profit Community Interest Company, supports children and families impacted by imprisonment while helping people in custody maintain positive family relationships. This work strengthens reintegration outcomes and breaks intergenerational cycles of offending.
A three-year Welsh National Lottery grant supports the School Zone Family Service, which delivers trauma-responsive, relational support for children and young people with a parent in prison across over 500 primary and secondary schools throughout Wales.
The model, shaped by partnership with Trauma Informed Schools UK (TISC UK), involves practitioners gaining specialist trauma and mental health qualifications, aligning the organisation’s culture with trauma-informed principles. We are partnering with Cardiff Metropolitan University and the University of Bedfordshire for independent evaluation and expansion.
School Zone's sustainable outcomes rely on strong collaboration between schools, prisons, social services, probation, and community organisations. Our workshop will cover complex referrals, trauma responsive interventions, safeguarding, peer support initiatives, and real-life case studies involving remand, reintegration, and sexual offences.
Using candid films and practical examples, participants will learn how emotionally available adults and psychologically safe environments build resilience, attachment, hope, and long-term positive outcomes for children and families impacted by imprisonment. Invisible Walls was recognised as best practice in the Welsh Government commissioned ASPIRE evaluation (2025) and the Chief Inspector of Prisons Thematic Review (2026).
Julie Jones (Schools and Prisons Manager at Invisible Walls) has a background supporting children who experience domestic abuse and champions the vital role of schools for children lacking a stable home life. Since 2012, she has focused on children whose parents are involved in the criminal justice system.
In 2014, Julie developed 'School Zone,' a distinctive service creating a triangular relationship between prisoners, their child, and their teacher. She delivers training to school staff and professionals on the impact of parental imprisonment and establishes a network of schools with 'prison champions'. Hundreds of schools across Wales have visited prison establishments to gain insight from the child's perspective, which improves teacher understanding and outcomes like school attendance, reduced stigma, and better mental health for the children.
Her work has been nationally recognised, including a highlight at the 2017 Crime and Social Justice Awards and a prestigious 2022 Butler Trust Award from the Princess Royal. In 2024, her efforts led to a ground-breaking event: schools came into a Welsh PCOSO prison to meet with security-approved fathers and their children for the first time in penal history.
Julie is now working to replicate 'School Zone' in English establishments. Additionally, she completed the Level 5 Diploma in Trauma and Mental Health and now collaborates with Trauma Informed Schools and Communities (UK) to deliver online training, helping hundreds of practitioners across Wales identify and support 'hidden' children.
Gemma earned a degree in Psychology and Health Sciences from Bristol, University of the West of England and has used what she learned during that time throughout her 25 year career in working with vulnerable children in families.
Gemma has worked with children and young people in schools in a variety of roles, including mentoring and careers advice. She has also worked for a number of different charities, the most recent being a charity supporting young people with issues around sexual health, wellbeing and healthy relationships. For the last 6 years Gemma has worked in prisoner family services, the last three of those for Invisible Walls.
In her spare time Gemma enjoys reading, spending time with her family and friends, watching her daughter play football and walking (and cuddling) her beloved greyhound, Finn.
Siobhán Garrett is an educational consultant, trainer and therapeutic practitioner specialising in trauma-informed and relational approaches across schools, colleges and community settings. With more than twenty years’ experience in education, including leadership roles in primary and specialist settings, she works across the UK and Ireland supporting organisations to embed compassionate, evidence-informed practice that improves outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.
As a licensed trainer with TISCUK, Siobhán delivers training and consultancy focused on attachment, belonging, behaviour, mental health and the impact of adversity on learning and development. Her work draws on neuroscience, attachment theory and trauma-informed systems change, with a particular interest in social buffering, emotionally available adults, and the role of relational environments in strengthening resilience.
Siobhán has worked extensively with schools, further education colleges, local authorities, Violence Reduction Units and multi-agency partnerships to develop trauma-informed cultures that prioritise safety, connection and inclusion. She is also the founder of Healing Young Hearts Ltd and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Psychology and Trauma with the Anna Freud Centre and UCL.
Her work is grounded in the belief that relationships are central to healing and that children experiencing adversity require systems that recognise behaviour through a relational and developmental lens rather than a punitive one. Within the Invisible Walls partnership, Siobhán supports the development of trauma-informed approaches that help schools and services better understand and respond to the experiences of children affected by parental imprisonment.
