Brochure of Probation Interventions

Accredited Programme offers

Building Better Relationships (BBR)

BBR is for adult male perpetrators convicted of an Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) related offence against a female partner, who present with a moderate or high risk of committing future IPV offences.

BBR has a strong skills focus and participants are provided with a range of cognitive and behavioural skills and tools to support and promote the use of positive behaviours in their intimate relationships. BBR makes use of a range of treatment approaches and techniques.

BBR is a moderate intensity cognitive-behavioural group work intervention. Its theory base reflects the growing view that IPV is a complex problem that is likely to have multiple causes. BBR is responsive to the needs of individual participants and provides opportunities to develop skills that are introduced during the programme.

Probation staff are expected to refer all individuals who meet the eligibility and suitability criteria to BBR in community sites.

Healthy Identity Intervention (HII)

The Healthy Intervention Programme (HII) is a one-to-one programme that targets the social and psychological drivers of extremist offending. HII is made up of a combination of discussion, reflection, written exercises and skills practices.

The number of modules and sessions an individual completes will depend on their particular level of risk and need. The more engaged and identified a participant is with an extremist group, cause or ideology, the more modules of the HII they are likely to complete. The central aims of the HII are to:

• Prevent reoffending by reducing an individual’s willingness to offend on behalf an extremist group, cause or ideology (i.e. desistance)
• Promote and facilitate disengagement from an extremist group, cause or ideology

A strengths-based approach to desistance is used, supporting supervised individuals in identifying and building on their existing strengths and skills to encourage and empower supervised individuals to disengage from an extremist group, cause or ideology, desist from offending and lead a pro-social lifestyle. Participants are expected to be open, reflective and willing to discuss aspects of their lives associated with their offending.

Resolve

Note: This section applies to the East Midlands, East of England (Essex only), Greater Manchester, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, London, North East, North West, West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside regions only.

Resolve is designed to help participants explore and understand their individual reasons for using violence, and to motivate them towards a violence-free life.

Participants are encouraged to look toward the future and to develop a ‘New Me’ persona through exploring, developing and strengthening the resources and protective factors that will support them in reducing the likelihood of using aggressive and / or violent behaviour. Participants are encouraged to develop realistic and meaningful personal goals that can help them live a more satisfying and pro-social life.;

Resolve is a moderate intensity cognitive-behavioural group work intervention that provides a strengths-based and evidence-based treatment approach for individuals who have a history of violent offending / behaviour.

Participants are asked to contribute to all discussions and to consider and discuss how the Resolve material could be applied in their own lives.

Thinking Skills Programme (TSP)

TSP reduces recidivism by focusing on developing people’s ability to manage their emotions, make decisions, solve problems, achieve their goals, manage the influence of anti-social relationships and use pro-social interpersonal skills in their interactions with others.;

By having and increasing these skills participants are then able to apply these to the way they live and manage their everyday lives. This in itself reduces the chances of offending reoccurring and helps participants set up and maintain a pro-social and constructive lifestyle. The programme however moves beyond this and actively encourages participants to apply the thinking skills to identify and effectively manage their risk factors. It coaches participants to apply their new and existing thinking and behavioural skills to develop personally relevant protective factors. It also coaches participants to apply the skills to setting and achieving approach focused, pro-social goals linked to relapse prevention.

TSP has seven Treatment Goals which target a range of dynamic risk factors, which are strongly evidenced in the literature to link to offending:

• Stop and Think
• Emotional Awareness
• Problem Solving
• Perspective Taking
• Offence Free Relationships
• Goals and Values
• Seeing the Whole Picture

Horizon

Horizon is designed to help men who have been convicted of a sexual offence address the factors that have been problematic in their general lives, and which have contributed to their offending behaviour. The ethos of the programme is to instil hope and optimism in the participants through working with them to strengthen and develop protective factors within their lives.;

Horizon has a strengths-based approach which means it aims to increase psychological, social and emotional strengths to assist participants to desist from crime. It is also future focused, in that participants are encouraged to set goals to enable them to engage in constructive, positive, offence free future lives, supported by the skills they learn in the programme.

Horizon is formed of 9 Blocks:

• Engagement
• Getting Going
• ‘New Me’ Goals
• Supporting My Success
• ‘New Me’ and Sex
• Controlling My Feelings
• Solving My Problems
• Positive Relationships
• Moving On

iHorizon

Note: This section applies to the East of England, Greater Manchester, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, London, North East, South Central, South West, Wales and Yorkshire & Humberside regions only.

iHorizon is a programme for men whose primary clinical need is to address internet only sexual offending, that is, where it is limited to possessing, downloading, and/or distributing indecent images of children, where there has been no contact with victims. Men with convictions involving other forms of sexual or sexually motivated offending will not be suitable for iHorizon and should be assessed for an alternative programme.

iHorizon has a strengths-based approach which means it aims to increase psychological, social and emotional strengths to assist participants to desist from crime. It is also future focused, in that participants are encouraged to set goals to enable them to engage in constructive, positive, offence free future lives, supported by the skills they learn in the programme.

New Me Strengths (NMS)

Note: This section applies to the Greater Manchester, London, North West, South West and Yorkshire & Humberside regions only.

NMS has been specifically designed to be responsive to the communication styles and abilities of people with learning disabilities and learning challenges (LDC).

NMS is a cognitive-behavioural group-work programme suitable for adult men who have been convicted for any offence. This programme is the LDC suite equivalent of the Thinking Skills Programme (TSP), Horizon, Building Better Relationships (BBR) and Resolve.

All of the programme materials are designed to target specific criminogenic needs outlined left. These needs are the focus during the programme and are put across to participants in the form of a Success Wheel. Participants use the Success Wheel to help strengthen New Me in each of the areas relevant to them.;

Participants start off by identifying existing strengths in each area. We work from a strengths-based approach, rather than solely focussing on risk. They set themselves goals to strengthen their Wheels and they work on these goals during the programmes. Ongoing skills practise is important.

Living as New Me (LNM)

Note: This section applies to the Greater Manchester, London, North West and West Midlands regions only.

LNM is an accredited skills maintenance (booster) programme for those individuals who have already completed New Me Strengths (LDC* equivalent of Horizon) or Becoming New Me+ (LDC* equivalent of the Kaizen programme suitable for custody delivery).;

*LDC: learning disabilities and learning challenges. This suite of programmes is designed to be responsive to the communication styles and abilities of people with LDC.

All the programme materials are designed to target specific needs related to offending. These needs are the main focus during the programme and are put across to participants in the form of a Success Wheel. Participants use the Success Wheel to help strengthen New Me in each of the areas relevant to them.

Structured Interventions: Need areas

Structured Intervention: Attitudes, Thinking and Behaviour (ATB)

Attitude, Thinking and Behaviour Structured Interventions aim to reduce recidivism by focusing on one or more of the following areas:;

• making decisions
• solving problems
• achieving their goals
• managing the influence of anti-social relationships;
• using pro-social interpersonal skills

These are skills intended to enable participants to overcome challenges and live a purposeful, pro-social lifestyle. Some ATBs will promote these skills within a specified cohort, for example 18-25 year-olds and people with either dangerous driving or drink driving offences.

Structured Intervention: Domestic Abuse (DA)

Domestic Abuse Structured Interventions aim to reduce Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) recidivism by focusing on one or more of the following areas:

• Attitudes that support healthy relationships
• Aggression and anger management
• Emotional mismanagement / self-regulation
• Social skills
• Conflict Management Skills

These are skills intended to enable participants to overcome challenges in relationships and live a purposeful, pro-social lifestyle.

Structured Intervention: Emotional Management (EM)

Emotional Management Structured Interventions are designed to help participants explore and understand their use of violence, and to motivate them towards a violence-free life. Participants are encouraged to develop and strengthen the resources and protective factors that will support them in reducing the likelihood of using aggressive and / or violent behaviour. Participants are encouraged to develop realistic and meaningful personal goals that can help them live a more satisfying and pro-social life.

Structured Interventions will vary geographically. Please approach your Probation Court Team to access your local provision.

Commissioned Rehabilitative Services: Need areas

Commissioned Rehabilitative Services will deliver a range of interventions to Men aged 18+. Providers will tailor their activities to meet the complexity of a person’s needs and which takes account of their protected characteristics. CRS providers will liaise with Probation Practitioners and will agree an action plan which details the work which will be undertaken.

Accommodation Requirements

Services assist individuals to:

• Obtain or maintain suitable accommodation
• Overcome barriers to maintaining or obtaining suitable accommodation
• Prevented from homelessness

Education Training & Employment Requirements

Services assist individuals to:

• Obtain suitable training, education and employment
• Overcomes barriers to obtaining/maintaining suitable training, education and employment
• Maintain suitable training, education and employment
• Demonstrate improvement in the skills and attitude which enable self-development and increase employability.

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Emotional Well-Being

Services assist individuals to:

• Coping skills and strategies to regulate mood and demonstrate perspective-taking and self- care by avoiding risky situations.
• Improved levels of self-efficacy, resilience and confidence.
• Ability to access and engage with mental health services and/ or comply with any medication/treatment/therapy programmes.
• Ability to recognise and manage triggers to worsening wellbeing.
• Ability to build and maintain appropriate social interactions

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Lifestyle & Associates

Services assist individuals to:

• Improve pro-social self-identity and ability to access community-based support networks and/or engage in their community and able to make a positive contribution.
• Sustain engagement in pro-social leisure interests and purposeful activities.
• Reduce engagement with pro-criminal associates and activities and on negative peer relationships or networks, such as organised crime

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Family & Significant Others

Services assist individuals to:

• Develop or maintain positive family relationships and avoids harmful relationships.
• Demonstrate positive, confident and responsible parenting behaviours
• Improve ability to develop positive intimate relationships.
• Demonstrate positive coping strategies in the event of temporary or irretrievable breakdown of familial or other relationships.
• Comply with voluntary/ mandatory family or relationship-focussed programmes.

Commissioned Rehabilitative Services will vary geographically. Please approach your Probation Court Team to access your local provision.

Women’s specific services

Commissioned Rehabilitative Services will deliver a range of interventions to women aged 18+. Providers will tailor their activities to meet the complexity of a person’s needs and which takes account of their protected characteristics.

Women’s providers will:

• Deliver the activities by Supplier Personnel who are trained in and use a Trauma-Responsive Approach.
• Deliver the activities in women-only group(s) and/or with the option for Supplier Personnel who are women.
• Deliver the activities in a physical space that is safe and suitable for vulnerable women.
• Use materials which are gender specific where appropriate.
• Ensure activities are strengths-based and encourage women to build and develop transferable skills.
• Identify and address barriers (including child-care commitments, social isolation, religion, language and other cultural barriers, sexual orientation, domestic abuse, involvement with the sex industry, the impact of childhood sexual & physical abuse, controlling coercive relationships, substance dependency and lack of self-esteem) to achieving personal change

CRS providers will liaise with Probation Practitioners and will agree an action plan which details the work which will be undertaken.

Accommodation

• Women obtain or maintain suitable accommodation
• Women overcome barriers to maintaining or obtaining suitable accommodation
• Women are prevented from becoming homeless

Education Training & Employment Requirements

• Women obtain suitable training, education and employment.
• Women overcome barriers to obtaining/maintaining suitable training, education and employment.
• Women maintain suitable training, education and employment.
• Women demonstrate improvement in the skills and attitudes which enable self-development and increase employability.

Dependency & Recovery Requirements

• Women achieve abstinence or controlled/ non-dependent or non-problematic substance misuse.
• Women increase their understanding of addictive behaviours and triggers and explore suitable options available to reduce their dependency.
• Women improve their physical health and mental resilience.
• Women enhance their skills to manage risky situations which may pose a trigger or relapse.
• Women improve their physical health and mental resilience.
• Women establish Dependency Pathways to manage a range of addictive behaviours, including supporting access into other treatment providers and detox programmes.

Finance Benefit & Debt Requirements

• Women’s financial management skills are developed and/or enhanced.
• Women can successfully navigate the benefits system, including online banking skills.
• Pathways are established to help women maintain and sustain an income, safely manage money and reduce debt.
• Women gain access to appropriate financial products, advice and/or services.
• Women gain quick access to universal credit.

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Emotional Well-being

• Women develop coping skills and strategies to regulate mood and demonstrate perspective-taking and self- care by avoiding risky situations.
• Women develop improved levels of self-efficacy, resilience and confidence.
• Women develop the ability to access and engage with mental health services and/ or comply with any medication/treatment/therapy programmes.
• Women develop the ability to recognise and manage triggers to worsening wellbeing.
• Women develop the ability to build and maintain appropriate social interactions.

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Family & Significant Others

• Women develop or maintain positive family relationships and avoid harmful relationships.
• Women demonstrate positive, confident and responsible parenting behaviours.
• Women improve the ability to develop positive intimate relationships.
• Women demonstrate positive coping strategies in the event of temporary or irretrievable breakdown of familial or other relationships.
• Women comply with voluntary/ mandatory family or relationship-focussed programmes.

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Lifestyle & Associates

• Women improve pro-social self-identity and ability to access community-based support networks and/or engage in their community and able to make a positive contribution.
• Women sustain engagement in pro-social leisure interests and purposeful activities.
• Women reduce engagement with pro-criminal associates and activities and on negative peer relationships or networks, such as organised crime.

Personal Well-Being Requirements: Social Inclusion

• Women secure early post-release engagement with community-based services.
• Women develop and sustain social networks to reduce initial social isolation.
• Women develop resilience to cope with challenges and barriers on return to the community

Commissioned Rehabilitative Services will vary geographically. Please approach your Probation Court Team to access your local provision.

Toolkits

Choices and Changes

The Choices and Changes resource pack has been developed for young adult men (aged 18-25) in order to support the development of psychosocial maturity and pro-social choices, and is designed to target and assist with six priority needs:

• Developing a stable, pro-social identity
• Building resistance to peer influence
• Developing self-sufficiency and independence
• Building skills to manage emotions and impulses
• Increasing future orientation
• Strengthening bonds with family and other close relationships.

Choices and Changes is available to those young adult men:

• who are unable to access Accredited Programmes but have a need to develop maturity
• who are suitable for Accredited Programmes, but not yet ready to engage due to low maturity
• who have previously completed an Accredited Programme, but who still need to develop maturity

Choices and Changes has been designed to be flexible and responsive to the needs of an individual, delivered on a one-to-one basis during supervision. It can be used by any member of staff, but ideally keyworkers and Probation Practitioners. There is no formal training required to deliver the content: the most important factor is that the person delivering the exercises can relate to, understand and be responsive to the individual they are working with. The delivery style should be encouraging and supportive.

Connection and Community: Chemsex Intervention Toolkit

Chemsex brings together several specific features:

• The use of three drugs referred to as ‘chems’ (Methamphetamine, Mephedrone and GHB / GBL. Other drugs may be involved but are not referred to as chems and can include; Viagra, cocaine, ketamine, amyl nitrate)
• The use of the chems takes place in a sexual context and it is the sexual impact that is the main motivating factor
• Research and statistics tell us those involved are almost exclusively; gay men, bi-sexual men, men who have sex with men and some trans men
• Chemsex behaviour usually takes place in private settings and in small groups, referred to as ‘chillouts’ or ‘parties’. Some men will use chems by themselves
• Chillouts, parties and the supply of chems is organised using geo-networking apps and ‘hook up’ sites
• Crimes occurring in the chemsex context include both sexual and a wide range of non-sexual crimes

Connection and Community aims to provide an experience of a safe, respectful, supportive interpersonal connection. Probation Practitioners encourage participants to think about the role that involvement in chemsex has played in meeting their needs and to identify alternative ways to meet those needs without causing harm to self and others.

Connection and Community is designed to provide structure to regular supervision sessions with flexibility based on identified individual needs. To reduce reoffending and promote desistance, the toolkit targets specific risks and vulnerabilities, understood through currently available research to be indicated as occurring within the chemsex context. It uses adapted material from evidenced-based approaches to achieve this and has additionally incorporated intervention material from other professionally developed interventions within sexual health and substance misuse.

The criminal justice response to chemsex related crime has needed to recognise the paradoxical presence of risk and vulnerability existing in the lives of those involved. Connection and Community has been designed to address risk and vulnerability within the supervised individual.

Connection and Community is designed to be delivered on a one-to-one basis.

Developing Dialogues

Developing Dialogues is a toolkit containing 44 discussion-based exercises which aims to develop, facilitate and support constructive discussions between Probation Practitioners and participants, to examine and address issues associated with extremism.

Developing Dialogues is intended to help practitioners explore issues, events or behaviours that have led to credible concerns about an individual’s interest or involvement in extremist activity or offending.

Discussions are designed to encourage participants to question their interest and involvement and reduce this where it is deemed potentially problematic or harmful.

This is balanced with exploration around how individual strengths, attributes, values, relationships and opportunities may build personal resilience and divert individuals from potentially continuing down a pathway towards extremist offending.

The intended outcomes underlying the modules and discussions of Developing Dialogues are to enable individuals to:

• Meet their personal needs without becoming committed to an extremist group, cause or ideology to meet these
• Strengthen their own sense of personal agency in making decisions about their current and future commitments and life
• Prevent or reduce harmful thinking, beliefs and attitudes associated with an extremist group, cause or ideology
• Express and manage challenging emotions associated with their interest in, or engagement with an extremist group, cause or ideology
• Express their values and pursue their goals legitimately without being interested in or engaged with an extremist group, cause or ideology

Developing Dialogues is delivered on a one-to-one basis, providing structure within the supervision process, assisting Probation Practitioners to plan, prepare and deliver the sentence plan. Materials support preventative work where appropriate and build practitioner confidence and competence in addressing concerns around extremism and extremist offending.

Maps for Change

Maps for Change is a toolkit of exercises for Probation Practitioners to use to help structure one-to-one supervision with men convicted of sexual/sexually-motivated offences who are not eligible for an Accredited Programme. The exercises in the toolkit are aimed at helping the individual to develop skills and strengths to maintain an offence-free lifestyle.

The Maps for Change toolkit is organised to strengthen protective factors linked to sexual offending in the following areas:

• Signpost Map
• Pro-Social Networks – Relationships
• Positive Routine – Employment
• Social Investment – Giving Something Back
• Commitment to Desist
• Smarter Internet Use

There are also supplementary exercises which support many of the exercises included in the listed areas.

The Maps for Change package consists of over 40 structured exercises that are delivered on one-to-one basis. These exercises are designed to build the necessary skills and behaviours to help men desist from future sexual offending.

New Me MOT

New Me MOT is a toolkit of short exercises that enable the Probation Practitioner to support graduates of the following Accredited Programmes:

• Becoming New Me + (all strands: Sexual, General Violence and Intimate Partner Violence)
• Cognitive Self-Change Programme
• Healthy Sex Programme
• Horizon
• iHorizon
• Kaizen (all strands: Sexual, General Violence and Intimate Partner Violence)
• Living as New Me
• New Me Strengths (all strands: Sexual, General Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Acquisitive)
• Self-Change Programme

New Me MOT assumes an understanding of the core concepts and language used within those stated Accredited Programmes and encourages participants to consolidate and build on their learning, and to generalise this to different contexts throughout the remainder of their sentence.

The participant’s engagement in the exercises provides the Probation Practitioner with critical information to inform decision making in relation to the direction of the sentence. Those that take up the offer of support do so on the understanding that they:

• Provide evidence of self-monitoring (Learning Logs)
• Trial, evaluate, and refine their future plans for living (the New Me Life Plan)
• Continue to develop skills and work towards realising their goals
• Continue to develop support networks (Support Spiders/ New Me circles) to strengthen their efforts to explore the potential of change

The Pack Library contains brief exercises designed to meet a diverse range of needs in a structured yet flexible way. They are exercises that can be used to support and provide structure to supervision; address needs and enhance skills to deal with the problems that the individual faces in their everyday life. Exercises offer maximum flexibility within the context of supervision, for example, they can be used within a supervision session or they can be set as work for the individual to complete between meetings. They can be used to support supervision delivered on a one-to-one basis or on a small-group basis.

Skills for Relationships

The Skills for Relationship Toolkit (SRT) combines Accredited Programme content from the Building Better Relationships Programme with a flexible delivery approach to enable brief rehabilitative conversations delivered during the routine supervision of people with Intimate Partner Violence offences.

Each exercise is based around an animated clip (lasting between 1 and 5 minutes) intended to achieve a specific learning outcome that forms the basis of a rehabilitative conversation. Separate sets of clips exist for men with female victims and men with male victims.

The key focus of the toolkit is helping people cope with the complexities and pressures of their relationship without getting into conflict. The toolkit enables this by supporting them to decide how they want their relationships to be; recognise their strengths; and develop new relationship skills.

SRT should be prioritised for supervised individuals who are medium and high risk on the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) who – for whatever reason – are not able to access the Building Better Relationships Accredited Programme which would be the preferred programme for this group.

Probation Practitioners will use SRT to engage participants during the brief time slots of routine supervision. Professional judgement will be used to determine when to deliver material within the individual’s sentence plan.

Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones is intended to be used with men who are assessed as low to medium risk of serious harm, although it may also be used for those assessed as high risk of serious harm in exceptional circumstances (such as individuals who either do not meet Accredited Programme risk of reconviction and need criteria or do, but are unable to access due to insufficient time on their Order/Licence).

Stepping Stones consists of a range of suggested discussion, skills or practical based exercises that have been organised into three manuals to support practitioners to build on protective factors. These are:

Strengths (internal protective factors):

What the person has within themselves to support pro-social behaviour. This can include hopefulness and well-developed social skills, positive attributes such as showing kindness and things a person does well.

Resources (external protective factors):

What the person can draw on from the world around them to support pro-social behaviour. This includes rewarding personal relationships, satisfaction in their employment, investment in their community.

Motivation:

How motivated the person is and how able to respond to and make a positive commitment to activities and restrictions that manage the risk of serious harm, taking account of any learning difficulties.

The materials are intended to be used with supervised individuals as a flexible one-to-one resource, considering the needs and strengths of the individual.

Unpaid Work is a Requirement where individuals undertake projects in their community; for example, picking litter, planting trees or decorating a community centre. The work must benefit their local community, not take paid work away from others and not make a profit for anyone. The requirement must be completed within 12 months of sentence. Sentences of between 40-300 hours can be imposed, reflecting the seriousness of the offending:

From 26 June 2021 the Probation Service will become responsible for the delivery of Unpaid Work in England and Wales. In the unified model Unpaid Work will build on the best practice from Community Rehabilitation Companies to improve the quality and consistency of delivery, whilst ensuring that requirements are completed within 12 months:

• Placements will be visible to the public, with projects and placements contributing to the community. Tangible benefits will be provided, with the ability of local communities to nominate work placements.
• We are introducing mandatory progress reviews at six and nine months to improve completion rates and we are standardising the Unpaid Work assessment and induction processes.

The Unpaid Work Requirement is available to individuals who do not speak English. Translation services are available in all Regions to support effective communication and safe working. We are also planning the development of instructional videos for the most common tasks with translated versions being made available.

Work is underway to with national charities and other Government Departments to promote the benefits of Unpaid Work, driving the development of projects with an environmental and sustainability focus and where on the job learning is embedded to improve educational and vocational outcomes. A proportion of Unpaid work placements are expected to have an environmental/ sustainability focus and this target will contribute towards the Ministry of Justice sustainability commitment.

The Equality Act 2010 provides a cross cutting legislative framework to protect the rights of individuals and promote equality of opportunity. Unpaid Work teams ensure there is a sufficient range and quantity of placements to meet the requirements of all supervised individuals.

• The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has provided guidance that individuals claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) can undertake permitted work. Furthermore, a ny work performed as part of an Unpaid Work Requirement is considered exempt (permitted) work for ESA purposes. Careful consideration is given to the type of work the individual is instructed to undertake, to ensure its within their abilities.
• Women subject to Unpaid Work are offered a choice not to be placed in all male work environments and where possible women only placements are sourced.

‘If I am honest Unpaid Work was the best thing to happen to me at that time’
Miss M (after completing Unpaid Work hours)
Humberside, Lincolnshire & North Yorkshire CRC