SPOTLIGHT: Delivering Excellent Practice
As Amy Rees announced in March, we are now focussed on our journey to achieving a new single priority: delivering excellent practice to protect the public and reduce reoffending.
In a series of articles we highlight best practice in our regions, how we’ve harnessed tools, ways of working and learning, to ensure the work is the right work and of the best quality. All against the backdrop of our core purpose of Assess, Protect and Change.
This week we shine a light on Probation Officer Rebecca Wetherill from the Yorkshire & Humber region and Commissioned Rehabilitative Service’s (CRS) provider Together Women who deliver women’s service.
We currently partner with 26 suppliers who provide key probation interventions such as Accommodation, Women’s Services and Personal Wellbeing to sentenced people in prison and on probation, and Employment Training and Education for those on probation.
Women’s Services’ contracts deliver bespoke and specialist support to females in probation to address their offending behaviour including assisting their physical and mental well being; access to accommodation, employment and maintaining relationships with their families. We are currently working with Providers, Probation and Contract Management to ensure that women receive the interventions, focussing on specific criminogenic needs to reduce their risk of further offending, and that CRS activity and tangible outcomes support that.
Rebecca is a Probation Officer in the Yorkshire and Humber region who works closely with Together Women who deliver women’s services. She assessed and referred a women on probation to Together Women for support for Families and Significant Others, undertaking 5 courses and who was identified as medium complexity with a recommendation of 20 enforceable days and this support would respond to her offending needs.
Keys to success
Rebecca and Tracy from Together Women built a collaborative and positive working relationship through regular communications, telephone calls and attending joint appointments; to focus on increasing the woman on probation’s self-esteem, as this had been a contributing factor in her offence.
Rebecca told us:
“Tracy is incredibly supportive and always goes the extra mile for our people on probation. We’re a close-knit women’s team and Tracy is as much a supportive colleague as she is support worker. She has vast amounts of knowledge and nothing is too much. It’s a pleasure to work with such a caring and professional person.”
Impacting people on probation
“I wanted to thank you again for all your support and kindness thus far. I’m sorry to have to be on the position that I work with probation but I’m thankful you have made this as easy as possible for me. Since I was referred to Tracy, she has been nothing but wonderful. Her kindness care and support has helped me through some very difficult moments. Tracy went above and beyond to help me, and her genuine kindness was and is so appreciated. I don’t think we get enough recognition in life when we are as wonderful as Tracy and the world is a better place for having her in it. I am so very grateful for everything she has done for me and am almost sad that my working with her has come to an end. I hope others can benefit as I did from Tracy and her wonderfulness. Everyone needs a bit of her in their life….”
Feedback from the the person on probation
