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Addressing Offender Attitudes,Thinking and Behaviour

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Attitudes, thinking and behaviour

We offer a comprehensive suite of programmes and interventions that are designed specifically to address and promote change with regard to the particular cognitive deficits and criminogenic attitudes that are common within the majority of offenders serving a custodial sentence. Our services comprise a mixture of Home Office accredited offending behaviour programmes and innovative pilot schemes exclusively developed within HMP&YOI Parc.

The Release Zone – Prisoners are invited to attend the Release Zone 11 weeks prior to release. They are advised of all the programmes and courses available to them and can select from Site Safety, Parenting, BICS (level 1 & 2), First Aid, Conflict Management, Yoga/Stress Management, Supervising Health & Safety, the GATE programme, Work Track Training, Citizenship and JobCentre and Careers advice. There are also a number of in cell packages such as Driving Theory, Drug Awareness, Business Start Up and Money Management. Many of these courses have been funded in total, or partially, by the ESF together with Custody 2 Work.

The GATE Personal Development Programme - is run by a voluntary agency, consisting of 7 sessions, over a 2 week period, covering issues such as motivation, confidence, team building, communication skills and self awareness whilst focusing on release. This course has OCN accreditation for communication and problem solving skills.

Resettlement Fair - Prisoners are invited to attend the Resettlement Fair one month prior to release. External support agencies, housing agencies, drug and alcohol agencies, employers and recruitment agencies attend the Fair, offering advice and arranging appointments post release. The Fair has been extremely successful providing prisoners with the opportunity to make realistic and achievable release plans and give them an insight into employers and agencies who are willing to give them a chance in the employment market.

Rolling Sex Offender Treatment Programme - the Rolling Programme (RP), is an accredited course, which averages 3 to 4 months in length per person and addresses a range of offending behaviours, including challenging thinking patterns, developing understanding of the victims point of view, understanding who is affected by sexual offending, and developing an understanding of risk and developing strategies to live successful lives without reoffending. This programme runs in a ‘rolling format’ so group members will join and leave when it is appropriate for them to do so.

Enhanced Thinking Skills - targets core thinking and behavioural deficits and encourages practice and continued use of the skills acquired in every day interaction and follow up work. Research has shown that a combination of both sex offender programmes and ETS is most effective with sex offenders. Prisons – Addressing Substance Related Offending aims to help individuals make changes in their lifestyle for continued abstinence and therefore reduce the likelihood of further crimes being committed. We look at the inmate’s motivation to change and teach individuals how to control substance misuse by understanding and changing behaviour, recognising situations where there may be a high risk of returning to use, and providing strategies to cope at these times.

Art of Living pilot programme - a non-offence focused course aimed at offenders who find it difficult to use traditional methods of learning.   It uses art to allow offender behaviours to be addressed through cognitive skills development.