UK Edition
'Grasping the essence of life': how men are helping ex-offenders embrace positive masculinity
You can tell Gavin Webster once had a successful career playing club rugby for teams such as Worcester and Northampton. He may have retired from the game years ago, but the language of sport still seeps into his speech, even when talking about his work to help young men who have been released from prison.
“They talk about aggregation of marginal gains”, he says. “[Sir] Clive Woodward was very big on it. It’s all these little, tiny things that we’ll just do 1pc better every day.”
The mantra of marginal gains feels a long way from the world of male ex-offenders, but it's one that informs some of the work of A Band Of Brothers, the charity for whom Webster volunteers. The organisation aims to equip young men with the skills and support needed for them to gain greater control over their own destinies - even if it means just doing a small bit better every day.
A key part of this work is to deploy older mentors to help younger men come to terms with their role in society – which is where Webster comes in. “50 years ago communities would have stepped in and helped young men develop their sense of personal responsibility, but that’s been lacking for them”, Webster says of the men he’s worked with. “We’re stepping into that gap a little bit.”
The charity started nine years ago in Brighton, but now also operates in Crawley, Eastbourne, Haringey (London), Oxford and Cornwall, with over 200 men acting as mentors nationwide. Each of those young men is a potential 'negative millionaire' to the state, meaning the state could spend up to £1 million on incarceration and rehabilitation if their live continues on the same trajectory.
So far, the results have been impressive. Of the 54 men who have graduated from the six programmes run to date, there has been an 80pc drop in offending rates, and as many as 80pc of them have found employment or gone into further education. It seems that the role of the mentor can bring about more than just a 1pc improvement in the lives of these men.
Webster explains that much of the charity’s work focuses on breaking down notions of masculinity for mentors and mentees alike, and helping the group work together to ask what it means to be a man. “Most of the men have a traditional story of being told that as a man you couldn’t be gay, you couldn’t be weak in a fight, you couldn’t cry. All of the things we can look back on, thankfully, now and say ‘wow, that was a heavy coat to be wearing'.
“A lot of them don’t have structural role models, so their energy doesn’t have direction and becomes quite destructive. They still have those messages internalised about what it is to be a man and that can get them into trouble; undirected energy, with no support network.”
Webster doesn’t think his former role as an international rugby player has much to do with gaining the respect of the young men. He’s quick to point out that playing rugby is a world away from the challenges faced by going to prison, and he’d rarely bring it up unprovoked, because he sees his role as more of a listener. All the same, his own experiences growing up do inform his role as mentor.
“[Rugby] was really central in my early teens and in my twenties, it was so important to me. But I started to look around at different ways of life, at a bit of Buddhism, for instance. I remember when I was playing professionally for Worcester, and I turned up on the bus with a book called ‘Conversations with God’. There was utter bemusement. ‘What’s this? What are you reading?’
“I had a lot of mates – a lot of guys I could go for a beer with – but there were not many who I could sit down with and say, ‘I’m really struggling with this’ or ‘I’m feeling vulnerable or insecure about this’. [I lacked] authentic connections where we can show our more vulnerable, softer side. It’s not grasping the essence of life, that, it’s just skimming along the top: more ego than soul.”
When he did eventually stop playing rugby, Webster took time to explore those elements of his life he had previously neglected. “It was nice to step away from it; to do some traveling and just explore other areas of my life”, he says.
“I became interested in many things that rugby isn’t. Talking about things, working out why everything wasn’t working as I wanted it to in my internal world, even though I was successful on the outside. It was a journey into finding out about myself that led me in a very circuitous route to A Band Of Brothers some years later.”
Volunteering with the charity has not been a one-sided act of altruism. Webster was going through a difficult time in his own life when he first joined, and becoming part of the community provided him with catharsis and a sense of connection. "Straight away it was clear, it was what I'd been looking for and I had a very definite sense that it was where I should be.
The fact the mentors see their involvement as a learning process too prevents them from being seen as aloof authority figures by the young men.
“The staff on the courses, we’ve all been through the process that the young men are going through so that’s a great connector. We’re bearing ourselves, bringing our vulnerability, skills, energy and passion to it, and they meet it with a similar energy in my experience. It’s been a really enriching experience.”
One of the qualities Webster is trying to celebrate as part of A Band Of Brothers is what he calls a “mature masculinity”, or "integrated masculinity". It’s no coincidence that the programme pairs older men with younger, as it can be the wisdom that comes from experience that can help some men open up - even Webster’s old friends from his rugby playing days.
“I had a 20 year reunion recently with some guys I played with at Northampton and there was a lot of personal growth there, it was just really heartening to see. These guys have really grown and stepped forward. It was joyful. As well as a reunion of old friends and old memories it was also great to see how people had had deep important life lessons.”
Webster sees the same potential in the young men that join him at A Band Of Brothers’ regular ‘circle’ meetings, or the mentees he’s been paired with. “They’re no different to the hundred guys I played rugby with, but the guys I played rugby with had a lot more support whether it be through sport or wherever they got it from, and I think that’s the only difference when you stand back and look at it. There’s really just a poverty of opportunities and support for some of the young men.”
Despite the many challenges they face, Webster is hopeful about the direction modern masculinity is taking. “You’ve got members of the Royal family talking about what it was like to be depressed. That’s wonderful. You have professional sportsmen who are talking about depression and how talking is so important. It’s just changing the landscape. People are sharing their journeys quite openly, whether it be sportsmen and famous people or men talking in pubs. I do have hope. It’s a hopeful feeling, being involved with A Band Of Brothers.”