A flagship scheme in East Midlands prisons allows prisoners more informal contact with their children. JENNIFER SCOTT witnesses emotional scenes at Morton Hall women's prison, and finds out why it's hoped building family relationships will cut re-offending

THEY only live nine miles apart. But it might as well be two different time zones.

Out there, life has rushed away in rapid, haphazard rhythms. Birthdays, school changes and growing pains have all skipped by, never to return.

Inside, time yawns cruelly, with the small plastic clock on the wall pounding the beat.

It's been three months since the last children's visit to Morton Hall, a closed women's prison located on the Notts/Lincolnshire border, but it's these last, agonising minutes that are the worst.

Alone amid a clatter of activity sits Julia, a single mum from Notts, serving a three-year sentence for conspiracy to supply Class B drugs. The social worker due to bring her boys has been swapped at the last minute and the prison hasn't been informed. This means extra identity checks at the gates which, as Julia knows all too well, are eating into her precious moments. Half an hour ticks by.

Then, a rumble of trainers stampede along the corridor. Four boys burst into the room.

"Find her!" issues the eldest. She rises and is buried in hugs.

Julia – one of several Notts women at Morton Hall – came to prison from an abusive relationship. Hooked on amphetamines to lose weight, she was convicted of supplying the drugs, along with her ex-husband, and the boys, aged between six and 11, went into foster care.

Today, though, she is not a prisoner; she's a mum, hungrily devouring her sons' holiday news. Jesse has been on a visit to Cadbury's. Ryan went to Tenerife, on a plane, he tells her, "up through the fluffy white clouds".

"I'll have missed out on Ryan going to juniors, Jesse going to big school. It's really hard," she says, her voice cracking. Right at this moment she's adamant: a return to prison is not an option.

All over the room mums weep while children beam. Each small reunion practically has a "do not disturb" sign hanging over it. The seven supervising staff, today wearing polo shirts rather than uniforms, try not to trespass on these moments.

"This is the golden time," whispers family learning officer Beth Horwood. "We just try not to be in the way for now."

Beth is the family learning officer with Children's Links, a national charity which specialises in improving children's quality of life.

Beth and her colleagues were brought into Morton Hall three years ago to help organise these children's days. As one officer tells me: "We're not trained to be play supervisors. It's quite removed from what we normally do."

It's thanks to Children's Links these tiny slivers of normal family life have taken on a life of their own. Inspired by what they saw at Morton Hall, Children's Links have extended the family visits scheme to five other East Midlands prisons, including Ranby and Nottingham. Last year it won a Big Lottery Fund grant of £150,192 for the work, which has helped 550 kids.

"I don't think there's anybody doing anything like this," says Beth. "It's hugely revolutionary. We're trying to develop it nationally. We're far ahead of most other regions. Other places have lino floors and bolted-down tables."

Morton Hall initiated the visits six years ago. Officer Sally Bilboa remembers the days as "very basic" with just 10 mums involved. Today, it's 28 prisoners and 48 children. Health and safety imposes a limit of 50 children, which has meant, on one occasion, staff had to turn down prisoners' applications. "One of the hardest things was saying 'no'," says Sally.

But usually all prisoners' applications are considered. Inmates also help serve tea and coffee. The day is treasured by both staff and prisoners. Staff have been on site since 7.30 this morning, transforming the sparsely-furnished prison visits hall into a family-friendly zone. The rows of tables, where prisoners receive fortnightly, two-hour visits from solicitors, social workers and families, have been cleared to make way for knee-high desks, where tubes of squeezy paints and bags of ribbons spill out. Bunting hangs on the wall. A giant Connect 4 and Jenga set dominates the floor. The normally-locked doors open on to a rectangle of green with a Wendy house and a mini football pitch.

"It's like Sixty-Minute Makeover!" laughs Sally. Today there will be a cake-decorating competition and a rounders match.

Instead of the usual two-hour, minimal contact visits mums get with their kids, these days last five hours. Mums can cuddle their children and wipe away tears. Many repeatedly stroke their children's hair, as if to check they're really here.

The children, meanwhile, dive joyously into the mess of glitter and sugar paper.

"As soon as they start to play, they forget about it," observes Beth, as a girl with blonde bunches dashes up to show her a paper flower. "It relaxes them and transports them to a different place."

Their mums, however, retain a foothold in reality. Beyond the Wendy house rises a 15 ft mesh fence with locked gates and security lights. Beyond the gates lie six single-storey cell units and Lincolnshire's unstinting flatness. It's not Cell Block H but nor is it home comforts.

"It's like taking your kids to the park, only you're still surrounded by a big fence," says Amy.

"You clock watch constantly."

At first Amy, who has been inside for five months, adamantly didn't want her children to visit. Her own incarceration felt too raw. She wanted to spare her children.

"But being able to run around and play games is wonderful," she breathes.

A single mum, Amy's troubles began on a holiday to Barbados where a man she thought was a friend made her return to the UK with a suitcase containing 2.6 kilos of cocaine in its lining.

"He told me if I didn't take what he wanted, the children and I wouldn't be coming back," she says. "I come from a good family. I've never touched drugs."

She was arrested at Gatwick and bailed for six months – long enough to see her son's first birthday. She got eight years and will serve four. Today, her two children, Sofia, seven, and Billy, 21 months, live with Amy's parents in Lincoln.

Sofia will be 11 when Amy returns home.

"She'll have started secondary school. It's an awful thought."

She starts to cry. Perceptive little Sofia races off and returns with a napkin for the tears. These days are bittersweet, with the goodbyes always on the horizon. For some women, the aftermath is agony. Alex Kirby, the prison's family support worker, will visit them in their cells tomorrow to get them focused on their next visit. But, overall, the benefits outweigh the negatives.

"The prison service recognises it's not the children's fault and they need to maintain contact with their parents," says Alex. "It's about trying to find a compromise between the security of the establishment and a nice day for the children."

The days also bolster the mums, giving them something to live for. Yes, prison is a punishment. Morton Hall's 325 offenders have been interred for crimes as serious as manslaughter, attempted murder and fraud.

But all too often, when women come to prison they lose everything. While men often have a partner at home, keeping things together, women lack that support. They emerge without a job, home, relationship and, sometimes, their children. Under those circumstances, argues Alex, what is to stop them re-offending?

"Men are usually looking forward to their release. Women are often terrified," she says.

It's difficult to assess the success of the children's days in isolation although Children's Links are planning a report for 2011.

The days form part of an overall programme of rehabilitation, counselling and training for employment. The women can do NVQs in subjects like horticulture and hairdressing and, come the final year of their sentence, find paid work. One mum, who entered Morton with serious drug issues, has a job in horticulture waiting for her on the outside. The children's visits are what motivated her to turn her life around.

"Sometimes you don't realise how important things are until you lose them," says Governor Jamie Bennett, a man who commands respect among inmates.

He believes in investing in the service and points out that increased education and employment opportunities for inmates have coincided with a 15% drop in re-offending since 2005.

"Because the mothers are the primary carers of the children, it's so important to maintain that relationship. Hopefully it means in the future they're more likely to become productive members of the community."

The small, plastic clock has drawn the day to a close. "Ten more minutes, ladies and gentlemen," calls an officer. Now it's the children whose lower lips tremble, their mums whose faces wear the fixed grins of masked heartbreak. Blinking back tears, they turn to tidy the room. It's 10 weeks until the next children's day. Until then, the clock ticks on.

Names are changed to protect families' identities.

jennifer.scott@nottinghanmeveningpost.co.uk