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When Joyce Headley came to Birmingham from Jamaica with her parents and sisters in the early 60s, she dreamed of the snow and of becoming a nurse. She never imagined she'd end up in prison.
But here she is working in one of Britain's most troubled prisons, the notorious HMP Brixton in south London, which has witnessed nine suicides and gone through three governors in the last four years.
Headley's job, part of a scheme set up by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders four years ago, is to help inmates find an alternative means to a life of crime after their release - the key ingredients to which are employment and housing.
She became interested in community work via a playscheme for disadvantaged children where she worked as a volunteer in her 20s. "I lived in a very deprived part of north London, in Stoke Newington, and so I saw what happened to people who had nothing - they turned to wrong-doing," says Brixton's lone rehabilitator. (Her planned nursing career ended after three years, and she confesses: "I couldn't bear being around sickness and laying people out. It was an environment where I had no control or influence.")
After becoming a teacher's helper, Headley went to teacher training college (deferred after she decided her children needed her at home more) and then joined another ex-offender charity before landing a post in a "jobclub" at Pentonville prison, north London.
Now aged "50-ish", she spends five days a week in Brixton, talking to men about their futures. "I can help because I'm not judgmental," says Headley, whose own family struggled to make ends meet on arrival in Britain. "You can't just write people off as bad because they've broken the law, especially if you are in a position to make a difference. Anyway, it's in everyone's interest to try to reduce repeat offending. I always tell the employers I invite into Brixton for seminars: 'It could be your mum or a member of your family who is burgled or attacked next.' Everyone deserves a chance at a job."
Around 40 to 50 inmates visit Headley each week. "I emphasise to the men they must always try to be rational and positive, and not behave like a victim," says Headley. This comes from her own experience bringing up a family in a white-dominated society. When she found her children bleaching their faces to be whiter, she told them they could be whatever they wanted to be if they wanted it enough. Still, she knows it's hard for inmates to retain a positive attitude to life on the outside when there is so much discrimination against them. Without a job to go to, she knows some 65% are likely to re-offend.
Ken Hawley, a governor at Brixton with responsibility for inmate activities, says of Headley's work: "It's about making the prison accessible to those who can help and advise inmates. Joyce is a great organiser, persuasive, and approachable. That, combined with her in-depth knowledge and understanding of inmates' problems, means she is really superb for this role."
Most of the inmates Headley sees are from disadvantaged backgrounds - many with inevitable literacy and drug problems. "They're at the bottom of the pile, with no way out," she says. "And with no job, they revert to underhand dealings.
"I want to break down the barrier of employer prejudice, which is largely fear. By getting employers such as Iceland and Kwik-Fit into the custodial setting, I try to break down the myths about ex-offenders. When they see a prisoner in an education class, they often see someone who really is trying to do the best with what they've got instead of someone who is just bad."
Headley has found jobs locally for several inmates with Iceland, which has pledged to expand the practice to employing ex-offenders nationally, and Kwik-Fit has also expressed interest. She says: "There's nothing more satisfying than bumping into an inmate on the outside, which I often do, and finding they are working, or have set up a small business."
She helps inmates to find accommodation, sorts out welfare benefits and gets those in financial difficulty on to debt management pro grammes. She listens to their emotional and domestic problems, and is the only civilian ever to win the prison's "employee of the month" award of its 500 staff, 200 of whom are officers.
One inmate who acts informally as a "buddy" to other prisoners says: "Men can have a confrontational attitude to other men, whereas they are kinder and gentler to a woman. Joyce is gold. Having her comforting presence and care is so important in a hostile environment like this, it's like water in a desert."
"When I walk around, there's such a high black population here I think: 'God, why are you all here? Wouldn't you rather be somewhere else?' None of them did it, of course - they were all fitted up - but quite a few of them do want to change their lives, and with the right help and support they could actually do it. Sadly, there isn't usually a budget for this work in prisons."
The government has just announced funding for careers and housing advice for seven prisons, including Pentonville, to be run along similar lines to Brixton's Nacro project.
Jobs can't get much tougher than persuading employers to take on men who've been in prison. Headley attributes her success to her parents, but not in a totally positive way. She says: "They were terribly Victorian and strict, but they were in a strange country and were unquestioning of those in authority, such as doctors and teachers, in a way that only immigrants are. I was determined not to be the same. I don't have tunnel vision. I'm more challenging and exploratory, and I'm grateful to them for that."
(Reprinted from the Guardian newspaper of England.)