Everything Kept Leading Back To Circles
Cody Porter talks about her journey from volunteer to trustee of Circles South West and how her career path seemed to “intricately tie” with the work of the charity.
Cody Porter first heard about the work of Circles South West in 2014 when doing her Masters in Forensic Psychology. Seated next to a woman, the class was discussing sex offender programmes and she turned to Cody and told her about a programme she used to volunteer in that worked with offenders, specifically sexual offenders.
Cody said: “My first thought was “Why? Why would you do that?” But I was intrigued and I was curious. I was curious to how that would even work and, even more so, why people would commit these offences. As someone studying forensic psychology I’m interested in what makes people do that”
“And that’s how I started looking into Circles, did some research on how it works and eventually applied and was accepted. I remember going to do the training and my overwhelming feeling was what if I can’t do this. What if this is too much for me?”
“But I did the training and the trainers were fantastic and it reassured me so much but I think we were all so scared of the skills-practice, where you role play being in a circle, but once we had done it our confidence levels really improved and we thought “we can actually do this” and I was certain that this was where I wanted to volunteer. I like this organisation – and that was where it all started.”
Cody started her first Circles in Wiltshire which lasted 18 months – during that time she found out she had been accepted to her PhD.
“My Circle was actually one of the first people I told about my acceptance, they were so pleased for me. In fact, the Core Member must only have been a year or so younger than me and we had talked about him going to university so he was so pleased to see me get that.”
“We had such a bond in our Circle, the volunteers, and such a great range of ages and experience and just different life experience, y’know. We had me, just a youngster then, and two older men who just bought such a wealth of experience in each of their ways. It just worked. Then we had our Core Member who was around about my age. The dynamic was that we all had things in common, despite our differences, there was a common thread and we all just got on so well. And the trust we built for how we would work together for the benefit of the CM, we all just knew each other so well and knew how the others would approach an issue.”
Cody credited the framework of the Circle and the dedication and skills of each member with why her Circle worked so well:
“It benefited the Core Member so much, to have a united bunch of people all working together. People who were easy in each other’s company, it was a great role model for him because once someone has been imprisoned and institutionalised for a time, where a lot of people were older than him, it was so good to model that behaviour. We focused on the life he wanted to build, yes we looked back – that’s necessary for what he’s done – but you have to be able to look forward too.”
The volunteers built such a bond during her Circle that the friendship lasted far beyond the work they did together.
“The other members of my Circle, they were lovely, and we kept in touch for years afterwards with calls and meet ups when we could. I had to leave after my first circle because of my PhD and how much work there was involved, but I kept saying to them “I’ll be back, I’m coming back”.”
Once the Circle was complete, Cody, and her fellow volunteers, felt they had started the Core Member back on a better path.
“The Circle ended well and he went off and started a university course and on a new path. We, as a Circle, felt like we had made such a difference to something really real. It’s such a rewarding thing and I feel privileged to have been able to do that.”
It was after her Circle that Cody completed her Master and started her PhD. She describes how Circles was the reason she took the direction that she did:
“So, one of my primary research areas is employability for people with criminal records, particularly sexual offence convictions. Circles is the reason why I started the whole employability for people with criminal records research line, because I had experienced that with our Core Member. I finished my Masters, which was very focussed on that, and moved to my PhD which was in investigative interview and lie detection. And I loved that as a discipline, but I couldn’t let go of the Circles and the importance.”
“So as soon as I finished my PhD, or coming to the main point of my PhD, I should say, I thought, right, okay, how can I go back into this? And I thought back to those Circles and the decision making and that the public discrimination that people have as soon as they hear about a sexual offence conviction, I thought, that’s it. I need to study decision making and I need to find out why.”
Cody started working in the criminology department in Portsmouth, and designed a decision-making experiments.
“We would give people a series of candidates to choose from. Once they’ve chosen a candidate, we asked them, how trustworthy is that person? How suitable is that person? How valuable are they? Why did you make that choice? And then we would give them a DBS that included a sexual offence.”
“Within that we looked at the three different kinds of sexual offence; an internet-based one, a contact based one against an adult and a contact based one against a child. Afterwards we said to them, “OK, how trustworthy, suitable and valuable is the candidate you chose based upon this new information? Do you still want to hire them?” And we gave them the option and asked them to explain why.”
Cody’s research gave a crucial insight into what is driving decision making with regards to employability and criminal convictions.
In 2021, Cody moved to UWE in Bristol and connected with Kieran McCartan, the chair of Circles South West. She said:
“It was fascinating seeing how my journey circled back from the place I’d started from and then to finally end up where it felt like you were always going, but you just didn’t know it yet. Everything led back to this, everything kept leading back to Circles. All these windy, windy roads back.”
“Kieran invited me to be part of the Winter Lecture delivered to volunteers on Employability, and it just hooked me right back in again.”
“It was not long after that that I found myself at the CSW conference and it made me wonder if I could do a trustee role and if I could get back in in a different capacity.”
“I’m really excited about how my experience can play a part in the decision making taken at Board level, and how my experience can now benefit Circles. Because It’s an amazing organization. And I tell everyone about Circles, about the work that we do and that we will do.”
“I’m so proud to say that I’m Deputy Chair, and so pleased that where it began is where I find myself back to – in a different role but with the same enthusiasm I had when I very first started.”
