CUTTING A NEW PATH

WE SPEAK TO MODERN BARBER AWARDS BEST EDUCATOR 2025, KATIE BIRKS ABOUT HOW HER PRISONER-LED EDUCATION PROGRAMME IS SHAPING FUTURES

Katie Birks and Hannah McKnight

Katie Birks, Barbering Manager at HMP Oakwood, started her journey at Oakwood Academy nine years ago at the age of 25 and shares that her first impression of the existing barbershop was that it was “dated” admitting she thought, “What have I done here?”.

Initially trained as a hairdresser, Katie was a natural but always craved a bigger challenge and knew that she wanted to end up teaching full time. “I ended up working at the Puro Hair Academy in Birmingham teaching hairdressing,” she explains. “An Internal Verifier at the salon knew I was looking to teach in prisons and recommended me for the job in 2016.” Once in the role Katie didn’t waste any time getting started, upgrading the existing qualification into an NVQ2 and later introducing the NVQ3. “Other prisons weren’t doing what we were doing but I had the trust and support of the prison. It took four years to get to where I wanted it to be. Within a year, we had opened a second barbershop in another houseblock and now we’re onto our third.”

What makes Oakwood Barbering Academy unique is its prisoner-led education and the Academy is now on its fourth prisoner assessor. “I wanted prisoners to feel comfortable. I could approach a prisoner about joining the course, but they’d have trouble communicating with me because of their self-confidence and me being a staff member. Sometimes in a prison environment they’ll see you as the same as an officer, even though we’re not,” she says. “I thought it would be good to give a long-term prisoner the chance to enhance their qualifications and their skills. I can teach them to teach other prisoners and we can get a hell of a lot more from those individuals as well. And it does work. You get the right prisoner in place and you’re setting them up for the future, which is more than they would expect to get out of it.”

The first courses were challenging. “I didn’t know what to expect. There were people who wanted to learn so they could make a difference, they wanted to make it a career upon release and some who wanted to be able to cut their children’s hair.” The rewarding part was seeing it click for someone: “There’s one prisoner at the moment who’s ready to be released who can see more opportunity for himself.”

Together with Barbering Tutor Hannah McKnight, Katie is keen to work with shops on the outside to offer support to ex-prisoners. “They’re doing challenging cuts straight away. From day one they’re cutting prisoner’s hair - there’s no dolls heads. These guys are so much more experienced and competent than most on the outside.”

Speaking about the other benefits of the course for both the learners and the prisoners who come in as clients, Katie shares: “We call it a community within the prison. They have trust in us that they’re coming to a professional service. You’re talking about people that haven’t had a haircut in several months because they haven’t gained access to one. In that time, they’ve suffered with scalp problems, hair problems, self-confidence problems and we create a safe environment for them. That’s the main aim for each learner - to be able to completely reform a person, not just with their hair, but mentally so that when they leave they’re full of confidence and they’re able to arrange a visit and have contact with their family; to show that they’re doing okay.” Learners are also gaining transferrable skills. “We’re having to soften that person and manage their behaviour in a way that they’re able to communicate better. They’ll leave after just 10 weeks as a professional. Someone might not have even held a job down before, but the course enables them to be employable as well.”

Katie credits Hannah and the prisoners for encouraging her and bringing her into the barbering community “on the outside”. “They encouraged me to enter last year. I looked at the categories and thought what we were doing was on par so I went for it. The recognition I got from applying was amazing, for people to see what I do was madness. It is refreshing to be in the industry again.” After finalising at last year’s awards, she was unsure about entering again. “The guys told me to apply. They could see where it had taken me to and told me I had to try again.” Catching up two weeks after her win she shares the reaction from everyone at HMP Oakwood: “Everyone’s been really happy here. A couple of the prisoners who work in a woodwork shop have made duplicates of the trophy so we can display it here in the prison as well,” she laughs, adding: “They’d said when I left on the Friday “We really hope you win but you’ve got no chance” because of who we were up against, so they couldn’t believe it when they found out! We were really disheartened last time and I thought there’s no way I can go up against these people, so I was just gobsmacked. Absolutely gobsmacked.”