Approved Suite of Probation Practitioner 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.

Maps for Change

Maps for Change is a toolkit of exercises designed to strengthen the protective factors known to be linked to desistance in men convicted of sexual offences. It is targeted at adult males convicted of sexual/sexually motivated offences. There are 6 Maps available which can be used to target the need areas relevant to the individual, these include: Relationships, Employment, Training and Education, Thinking & Behaviour and Lifestyle & Associates.

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**

*Currently available in prisons only
**Previous CSAAP accredited programmes

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 (including through skills practice and psychoeducation)
• Continue to develop support networks (Support Spiders/ New Me circles) to strengthen their efforts to explore the potential of change

New Me MOT contains a series of brief exercises designed to meet a diverse range of needs in a structured yet flexible way. New Me MOT is designed to support and provide structure to supervision and will be familiar to programme graduates because the content aligns with that of the above CSAAP accredited programmes.

New Me MOT provides a way of addressing need, considering risk, and enhancing 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 to support supervision delivered on a one-to-one basis or on a small-group basis. New Me MOT is also participant led providing an opportunity for individuals to complete tasks between meetings and report back on their progress (and areas of difficulty).

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 can be used to support practitioners to hold discussions and to complete exercises which seek to support the individual to lead an offence free life. The material can be used in a flexible way and tailored to meet the needs of each participant.

Flexible toolkit

Exercises contained across three manuals to support Probation Practitioners.

Strengths-based

All exercises are designed to help participants to identify and develop strengths which support people to lead more meaningful lives.

Future focused

All exercises are designed to support participants to take responsibility for their future lives and to develop non-offending identities.

Stepping Stones consists of a range of suggested discussions, 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.

Pathways to Change

Pathways to Change is a toolkit of exercises designed to strengthen protective factors linked to desistance in women convicted of sexual offences. The exercises in the toolkit are aimed at helping the individual to develop skills and strengths to maintain an offence-free lifestyle.

The Pathways to Change toolkit is organised to strengthen protective factors linked to sexual offending. It is gender-responsive and trauma-informed, to target the specific needs of Women Convicted of Sexual Offending linked to following areas:

• Relationships
• Self Esteem
• Problem Solving
• Unhealthy Sexual Thinking and Behaviour (where relevant).

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

First Steps to Change-Women’s toolkit

First Steps to Change is a toolkit of exercises for Probation Practitioners intended to support engagement and compliance during an Order or period of Licence supervision by providing practical activities focused on building skills, strengths and strategies to encourage women to desist from offending and have a positive future, taking into account that for a woman to be motivated, they need to feel safe and supported by someone with a genuine interest in their story.

The toolkit is gender specific, and trauma informed, using strengths-based approaches, and is underpinned by the evidence that women will benefit from addressing the impact of trauma, specific areas relevant to women in the Criminal Justice System as well as resettlement issues.

The toolkit comprises of nine parts with various activities covering: an introduction which outlines working in the context of trauma, a focus on initial engagement, wellbeing and grounding techniques, a focus on relationships and domestic abuse, maternal supervision, applying problem solving skills, working in the sex industry, thinking skills and future planning, transition into adulthood and resettlement and future goals.

In summary, the toolkit aims to:

• Provide structure when working with women
• Improve engagement at start of supervision and start of licence
• Increase self-esteem and well-being
• Facilitate a therapeutic alliance between practitioner and the supervisee

Creating Positive Connections

Creating Positive Connections is a toolkit for practitioners to deliver to males 18+ to support developing the individuals’ skills and confidence to build networks and connections so that they:

• are better prepared/able to access opportunities and support in the community,
• acknowledge their potential and recognise opportunities to contribute within their community,
• increase potential and opportunities to feel part of the community.
• the aim of this material is to support individuals to develop skills to better enable them to:
• have stronger community connections both formally and informally,
• contribute positively to the community,
• benefit from being a part of the community,
• feel a sense of connection, have a stake in the community and the sense of general wellbeing, as a result of feeling able to function as part of a community.

Creating Positive Connections (CPC) has 4 blocks and consists of 12 exercises designed to be delivered via a minimum of 8 sessions to support desistance by enabling conversations that will help the person on probation:

• Understand social capital and its benefits
• Identify their networks
• Develop their confidence and feel a sense of connection

The exercises are suitable for Males who are on Probation Orders or Licences, where it is identified that they could benefit from developing skills to identify support networks and build self- esteem and confidence to support development of social capital and personal connections.

Responsibly Aware

Responsibly Aware has been developed as an early intervention toolkit to be delivered by practitioners to adult males 18+ who have started to experience problems related to their substance use. These individuals have not reached the point of addiction or where a more intensive treatment path would be deemed appropriate.

Responsibly Aware takes a harm reduction approach and aims to support and guide People on Probation to develop safe and responsible substance use. Responsibly Aware looks at both alcohol and drugs and is not substance specific.

Responsibly Aware is not just about substances. Over between 5-6 sessions the toolkit focuses on the individual, their lives, those close to them, those in their communities and how substance use impacts on all of these aspects.

The toolkit applies a holistic approach, exploring the role that alcohol and /or drugs play in the lives of individual’s, guiding and supporting them towards positive choices and healthy lifestyles.

Aim of Responsibly Aware :

To provide individuals with the opportunity to reflect on their substance use and develop skills/techniques to support them in making positive change.

Objectives

• To understand use of substances and recognise the gains and losses of this
• To increase understanding of what is safe and responsible
• To increase awareness of the impacts of use of substances on others
• To develop techniques and strategies to manage substance use

Moving On

Moving On is aimed at males 18+ who are experiencing negative thoughts and feelings about themselves, which are associated with their conviction/offending and its consequences. These thoughts and feelings (which may include offending-related feelings of shame) will be blocking the individual, emotionally or psychologically, from moving forward positively with their life, getting in the way of desistance.

Moving On is a series of 8 guided conversations to be delivered over a minimum of 14 sessions:

• What’s it all about?
• Labels
• Public me/Private me
• My Values
• My Empathy Skills
• Difficult Experiences
• Difficult feelings
• Moving On

These conversations seek to support desistance by exploring the participant’s identity and by attending to some of the factors which may be preventing them from achieving a positive self-identity. An individual’s self-identity is how they view and understand themselves, shaped by characteristics including their life experiences, beliefs, values, appearance, personality traits, qualities and so on.

The materials are designed to consider the different parts of a participant’s identity and the factors which may have undermined or damaged their sense of ‘whole’ self. Individuals who will most benefit from the toolkit are those who are struggling to separate their offending behaviour – what they have done – from who they are.

Constructive Conversations

Constructive Conversations is a series of resource packs designed to assist HMPPS staff in prison and in the community in structuring exploratory conversations with ‘terrorist risk’ cases, those who have not been convicted of a terrorist or extremism offence but there is evidence that they may be developing an interest or becoming involved in extremism. It replaces Developing Dialogues which should no longer be used.

Constructive Conversations is currently being piloted and all deliveries must be approved by the Counter Terrorism-Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre (CT-ARC).

Constructive Conversations is comprised of three stages which are delivered in order, build upon each other, and allow for different levels of delivery based on risk and need. The three stages are:

• Stage 1: Commencing Conversations – provides staff with the knowledge, skills and materials to engage in meaningful discussions with individuals about such issues. It consists of five conversations aiming to explore an emerging interest in extremism and develop the relationship between practitioner and person on probation/in prison.
• Stage 2: Continuing Conversations – Consists of six structured conversations that aims to facilitate discussions that are exploratory, supportive and encourage individuals to lead more fulfilling lives away from offending and avoid becoming involved in an extremist group, cause or set of ideas.
• Stage 3: Changing Conversations – is an intervention aimed at building on the strengths of the individual and developing skills to prevent individuals from becoming further interested and involved in extremism.

Constructive Conversations is delivered on a one-to-one basis, providing structure within the supervision process, assisting practitioners to plan, prepare and deliver the sentence plan. Additional training is required before practitioners use these toolkits. Materials support preventative work where appropriate and build practitioner confidence and competence in addressing concerns around extremism.