Co-producing desistance opportunities with women in prison: Reflections of a sports coach developer

The following paper provides a sport coach developer’s reflective narrative account of his first experience of delivering a football-based development programme within a women’s prison. The account highlights the notion that initial ‘up-front’ desistance work can be a process of co-production where all those involved engage in a journey of discovery in which the seeds of desistance are planted and begin to take root. The interplay between practitioners and service users involved navigating issues including vulnerability, trust and the impact of environmental factors, and highlights the idea that initial desistance efforts result from co-produced efforts between the person initiating change and those tasked with supporting this process. The paper calls for greater attention to the lived experience of facilitating early desistance transitions, as this will result in furthering our understanding of desistance processes.