The Whitehall Group welcome Lady Edwina Grosvenor as guest speaker on Thursday, 18th April, 2024. During lunch, Lady Edwina discuss current Government Policy for prisons / women in prisons and aftercare – ‘Redesigning Justice’.
‘It is important that we have gender specific solutions to the problems that face us in our Justice System. This does not mean treating women preferentially, but it does mean designing intelligent solutions for the people that you are building them for. Hope Street Hampshire is one of these solutions, the ambitious, cross county model has been designed to be replicable and scalable in the hope that one day it will become main stream and offer an intelligent solution to women who are caught up in our justice system.’
Lady Edwina Grosvenor is a criminologist and prison philanthropist dedicating her career to drive systematic change within the Justice system, drawing on her experience of best and worst models of criminal justice from around the world. This inspired her to be the founding investor and Ambassador of the Clink Restaurant chain, which trains prisoners for work in the catering industry, and to founding and chairing the charity One Small Thing. The charity aims to redesign the justice system for women and their children and has gone on to develop Hope Street, a pioneering purpose-built residential community which is piloting a new approach to working with justice involved women. From within a healing, trauma informed residential environment, women and children have access to a range of specialist support. The aim is to create a blueprint for change that can be replicated across the country to achieve better outcomes, for women, their children and society. Hope Street was opened by HRH The Princess of Wales on 27 June 2023, and won the RIBA MacEwen Award 2024, where Hope Street was described as ‘Architecture that is healing people’. Having studied Criminology and Sociology at Northumbria University, Lady Edwina achieved a distinction in her master’s degree in Criminology and Crime Scene Management at Solent University in August 2021. She sits on the advisory board to the Centre for Criminology in the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. In January 2024 she joined Global Philanthropic as the first Chair of their Advisory Board, which pulls together philanthropists from across the world. Edwina was the 2022/23 High Sherriff of Hampshire. Edwina is the sole funder of the critically needed PAS 5222, a new child safeguarding BSI standard launching in March 2024. The standard aims to raise the benchmark for child safeguarding in out-of-school settings. In 2023 she was presented with the International Corrections and Prisons Association (www.icpa.org) Presidents Award in Antwerp.
To find out more about the Whitehall Group events or if you are interested in membership to the Whitehall Group please contact the Group Secretary, Fiona Jones by emailing fionajones.wg@culandsoc.com
The Whitehall Group is a high level policy discussion and thought leadership group whose members are mainly Cambridge alumni or those connected with the University of Cambridge. The Whitehall Group, a forum of the Cambridge University Land Society (CULS) hosts a series of lunches and dinners for approximately 15 – 20 attendees under the Chatham House Rules. The forum allows members and their guests to meet and discuss matters that are outside of their regular business / professional lives. We count amongst our members and supporters current and former Ministers, Diplomats and senior business executives. Past speakers have included Ambassadors, Ministers, Commissioners and leading academics and journalists. Speakers are invited to talk to the group on a current subject of political or economic interest.
