From Curtains to Connections: Cara’s 16-Year Journey at HMP Styal

Sometimes, the most unexpected paths lead to the most meaningful work. For Cara, Service Manager for Spectrum’s Drug and Alcohol Team at HMP Styal, her journey began far from prisons — selling curtains. While not glamorous, that first job taught her attention to detail, patience, and the value of doing things right the first time.

A brief stint as a legal administrator followed, but it was a chance advert in a free newspaper that changed her life. A nine-month maternity cover role as an administrator with the CARAT Team at HMP Styal marked the beginning of a career that would span 16 years — and counting.

Learning, Growing, and Giving Back

Starting in administration, Cara built essential skills: structure, communication, and organisation. Moving into a recovery coordinator role, she began working directly with women in custody, supporting them through drug and alcohol treatment. These early experiences taught her to listen deeply, motivate, and help women believe in themselves — building trust in an environment where time is short and the stakes are high.

As she progressed to senior practitioner and ultimately Service Manager, Cara’s focus has always been on connection, compassion, and empowering women to thrive. Today, she leads a team managing a caseload of around 225 women, most of whom face complex challenges including substance misuse, trauma, mental health difficulties, poverty, and fractured family ties.

The statistics are stark: women in custody are 36 times more likely to die from overdose than women in the general population. Most sentences are short — around 98 days — giving limited time to build trust, engage in treatment, and create a foundation for recovery. Many women are far from home and community support networks, and continuity of care on release is a constant challenge.

Give to Gain: Connection as Recovery

This International Women’s Day, Cara reflects on the theme “Give to Gain”: the power of reciprocity and support. In her role, giving isn’t subtraction — it’s intentional multiplication. Every conversation, every appointment attended, every moment of empathy builds bridges for women to step into recovery and opportunity.

Cara’s team works tirelessly to give women a chance to regain confidence and stability. By intentionally investing time, care, and expertise, they create the conditions for women to thrive. “Recovery is relational,” Cara says. “It happens through connection. The women we support often arrive feeling unseen and unheard. We give support, and they gain belief in themselves.”

From administering treatment programs to shaping operational strategy, Cara’s leadership ensures that every intervention is rooted in giving women the tools, guidance, and relationships they need to succeed. The result is a ripple effect: when women thrive, communities and families benefit too.

Why It’s Worth It

After 16 years, what keeps Cara coming back is simple: the people. Seeing a woman regain her confidence, start to believe in herself, or take steps toward recovery — even in small ways — is profoundly rewarding. One service user once told her, “Miss, if you were a stick of rock, you’d have HMP Styal written through the middle!” For Cara, that sentiment captures it all: connection, compassion, and the belief that every woman deserves a chance to rebuild her life.

From curtains to connections, Cara’s journey shows that when we give generously — time, expertise, empathy — we multiply opportunity. And in doing so, we help women rise, proving that giving is never subtraction, it’s transformation.

Give to Gain: Finding Strength in Unexpected Places

Finding Strength in Change – Andrea’s story

After 40 years in nursing and midwifery, I found myself at a crossroads. Changes to my role meant working outside my comfort zone, and I had to decide whether to face my fears, return to management, or take a completely new path.

I chose to become a prison nurse.

Working at HMP Low Newton meant supporting some of society’s most vulnerable women. It was unfamiliar and challenging, but I quickly discovered a passion for trauma-informed care. By listening without judgement and building trust, I empowered women to feel seen, heard, and supported.

In giving compassion, I gained renewed purpose.

Challenging Perceptions and Empowering Others

One of my proudest achievements was helping transform a prison palliative care cell into the Rainbow Suite—a space designed with patient input to provide dignity, comfort, and compassion at the end of life.

This experience reinforced the importance of giving women a voice in their care. It showed how empowerment, collaboration, and empathy can transform not just spaces, but experiences.

I was honoured to receive recognition for my work, including a patient-voted Nurse of the Year award. Their trust was the greatest reminder that care is built on human connection.

When My Role Changed

In March 2025, I was diagnosed with stage 2B ovarian cancer. For the first time, I experienced the fear and uncertainty I had supported others through.

I chose to share my story openly. Through honesty and vulnerability, I found strength—and helped others find theirs too. Women who had once been afraid to seek help felt empowered to take action.

Eight months later, I returned to the job I never imagined I would do but now cannot imagine leaving.

Give to Gain

International Women’s Day reminds us that when women challenge stereotypes, support each other, and share their stories, we all grow stronger.

By giving courage, compassion, and honesty, we gain resilience, connection, and empowerment.

We are all stronger than we think.

Women Supporting Women: A Journey of Resilience and Leadership

Susie’s Story

I began my nurse training in 1980 at the Calderdale School of Nursing, long before nursing moved into universities, before workplace autonomy for women was commonplace. I loved every moment of training, but I still remember asking the Chief Nursing Officer for permission to get married in 1982. It seems unthinkable now. How times have changed.

Those early years shaped me more than I realised. My first role on a stroke ward taught me what dignified care truly looks like. Later, as a senior nurse in the neurosurgical unit in Leeds; a chaotic ward shared by adults and children and no two shifts were the same. I vividly recall bathing a patient in a coma when he suddenly woke up and said, “You’re doing it wrong.” I screamed, he startled, and for weeks the story echoed down the corridors.

“Beneath the humour, though, was a profound lesson: the privilege of caring for people at their most vulnerable, and the unpredictability of human recovery.”

I left that role when I became pregnant with my first child. Nursing at that intensity clashed with the family life I wanted, marking one of many moments where I balanced the needs of others with my own hopes; a recurring theme throughout my career.

In private healthcare, I worked across medical, surgical, and paediatric services with a team so close-knit we never needed agency staff. Nights were long, exhaustion real, but joy was abundant. We built a High Dependency Unit from scratch, trained for it, and watched it flourish, one of the proudest achievements of that stage in my life.

Life, however, rarely follows a simple path. During my fifth pregnancy, my marriage broke down. I became a single parent to five children, and though I continued working, I also became unwell, physically and mentally. Support from colleagues and friends carried me through the darkest periods and taught me something vital: women survive by leaning into each other, not away.

With five little ones at home, I embarked on a master’s in business studies. It was chaotic and relentless, but I completed it. My children celebrated more than I did, understanding exactly what it had taken. That degree opened doors into management and ignited a passion for Women’s and Children’s services, where I felt at home supporting teams who guided families through fragile, life-altering moments.

My journey then took me into Health & Justice with Spectrum at HMP Styal. I had never been inside a prison before, but the women I met changed me. Many carried traumas far heavier than their sentences. Many had never had anyone to help when help mattered most. I realised how fortunate I had been to access support, recover, and rebuild. Along the way, mentors like Maggie Wood and Tracey Tyrell showed me that leadership could be strong, compassionate, and joyful all at once.

Life steered me home when one of my boys needed me more, but as they grew older, I found space again for my career. From dialysis and transplant to Quality Improvement and CQC readiness, each role added layers of learning, resilience, and confidence. One proud chapter was leading a charity from “requires improvement” to 100% “good” and achieving the first “outstanding” LD service in the region, proof that transformation is not just possible, it is inevitable.

In 2021, I returned to Spectrum as Director of Operations, later becoming Chief Operating Officer. At first, I felt overwhelmed, but gradually, the pieces fell into place. Every day I witness staff deliver astonishing care under circumstances most people never see, and their dedication moves me.

Looking back, my journey is not a straight line but a tapestry of resilience, reinvention, motherhood, leadership, heartbreak, humour, and above all, the strength of the women around me. I am lucky — not because the path was easy, but because at every turn, someone offered a hand, a voice, a moment of compassion. Women supporting women is not a slogan. It is what makes survival possible. It is what makes leadership meaningful. And it is what has shaped the leader I have become.