February / 2015
THE SPARK
THE PROBATION MAGAZINE FOR
SENTENCERS AND LEGAL PRACTITIONERS
Issue
5
WISER programme works
Oldham magistrates help
Neil turn his life round
P3
P4
WISER programme
passes 100 mark
P2
How we’ll deliver the
Rehabilitation Requirement Activity
Offenders helped back into employment
The
Rehabilitation
Activity
Requirement
PICTURED are Carl (right) and Neil who has
been helped by magistrates to change his life
OLDHAM Magistrates have been praised for
their role in helping Neil Absalom quit drugs.
The 39-year-old committed crime to feed his drugs
habit and had become a paranoid recluse who
barely washed and whose life was punctuated by
suicide attempts, crime and court appearances.
Carl Duddridge, probation services officer, encouraged
Neil – who had been a drug addict for two decades
– to begin a Reduction and Motivation Programme
(RAMP) aimed at helping him to quit drugs.
CGM CRC will complete sentence planning on
all offenders within 10 working days of the first
appointment made at court.
Although Neil was unable to complete RAMP,
he showed enough progress that when he
was next hauled before the town’s magistrates,
in January 2014, Carl encouraged them to
sentence him to a Community Order that
included the programme as a requirement.
We will undertake an assessment of
need in order to determine the number of
Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) days
that will be delivered on all new cases, and we
base the assessment on the following factors:
»» Level of risk of serious harm
»» Imminence of serious harm
»» Offender Group Reconviction Score (OGRs)
which is an actuarial recidivism assessment tool.
»» Type and level of offending-related needs
The Rehabilitation Activity Requirements will
be tailored to an individual offender’s risk
and offence-related needs. The RAR days are
made up of one or more of the following:
»» One of a range of locally approved, groupwork programmes related to the offender’s
offence. (Leaflets providing more details on the
range and content of these programmes are
available from the probation court duty officer.)
»» One-to-one motivational work
with an offender manager.
»» One-to-one work, focusing on the reasons
behind the offence(s), with an offender manager.
»» Appointments with local, universal, specialist
or commissioned services targeted at needs
related to offending behaviour, for example:
accommodation, employment, mental health.
»» Additional appointments, specified by the
offender manager, to monitor risk and support
compliance with the sentence of the court.
»» We estimate that in order to ensure that
offending-related needs are addressed, the
majority of offenders will have between 20
and 50 specialist and targeted intervention
days delivered to them over the course of
a community order. These days may be
supplemented by reporting days, specified
by the offender manager, to oversee
risk management and compliance.
Offender saved
from jail to complete
his order...
What will the RAR
mean to probation?
THE Rehabilitation Activity
Requirement represents a
radical change to the way
offenders are supervised.
“It will be more responsive to each
individual offender’s needs and will also
clearly reflect the work carried out by
probation and partner agencies to reduce
re-offending and support rehabilitation.”
A Rehabilitation Activity Requirement
combines the two sentencing options – the
supervision and activity requirements – that
were previously available to sentencers.
If an offender is sentenced to a
Rehabilitation Activity Requirement,
CGM CRC offender managers will then
decide where the offender should attend
appointments; what the activities are and
who the offender should report to.
Kim Thornden-Edwards, Cheshire
& Greater Manchester Community
Rehabilitation Company’s Director of
Operations, said: “This is a fundamental
shift and the key difference is that the RAR
is more flexible than its predecessors.
Kim added: “The RAR can also serve
other purposes, including supporting the
offender with things like employment,
training and education; victim awareness
and Restorative Justice.”
Carl said: “Magistrates accepted the proposal
which meant that, if Neil failed to complete
RAMP, he faced getting a custodial sentence.
“I’m delighted that we worked so successfully with
magistrates because, if Neil had been jailed in the
first instance, it would have undone all the progress
he’d made and he may not have recovered.”
Neil has now celebrated 10 months free from all drugs
and has successfully completed his court order.
Neil said: “I never thought I’d sort myself out. I
couldn’t have done it on my own. But the help
is out there if you are willing to accept it.”
WISER programme tops 100 successes
A COURSE for women
offenders is proving its
worth less than 12 months
after it was launched.
The Cheshire & Greater Manchester
Community Rehabilitation Company
was set a target of achieving
100 successful completions
of the WISER specified activity
requirement (SAR) by the end of
March. But programme facilitators
have notched up 120 completions
three months ahead of schedule.
The SAR was developed
by CGM CRC’s treatment
manager Suzanne Morrison.
She said: “Women often have a
lot of complex needs, but are not
high risk offenders. We tailored the
SAR with that very much in mind.
“It’s very satisfying for me to see
how the course is being delivered,
and to hear first-hand from the
participants about how they are
finding it is helping them in their lives.”
WISER consists of 12
sessions which cover a
range of techniques aimed at
stopping reoffending, coupled
with cognitive behavioural
elements that aim to give
participants the skills they
need to keep out of trouble.
THE WISER programme team from Manchester
Dennis Mahar, Achieve case manager, laying the
foundations for employment success for offenders
Achieve builds
a better future
for offenders
A COURSE designed to help offenders get qualifications that
will support them back into work is proving to be a winner.
Dennis Mahar, a case manager with the CGM CRC’s Achieve team
based in Chester, developed the three-day course which has been
piloted with stunning results.
He recognized that employers are demanding applicants who boast a
range of skills, including: the Construction Skills Certification Scheme
Card (CSCS); first aid and asbestos awareness.
The 10 offenders on the construction course notched up a total of
26 qualifications aimed at making them more employable in the
construction industry.
Dennis said: “I can see that many offenders want to work outdoors.
Many had bad experiences at school, and quite a few have held CSCS
cards and have had previous experience in the construction industry.
“What Achieve has to do is bridge the gap from where our offenders
are to where they need to be to get the necessary skills and certificates
required by employers.”
MATTHEW
SURPRISED BY
SUPPORT
Matthew, aged 31, was one of
the 10 to complete the course.
He was sentenced to a 12-month
suspended sentence order in
September, 2014, at Chester
Magistrates, for threatening behaviour.
He said: “I didn’t know what probation
would be like, and certainly didn’t
expect there’d be so much help with
getting back into work. I have been
really impressed by the work done to
support me back into employment.”
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