Working with Secure Environments
What we mean by a secure environments:
Prison, youth offending institute YOI, secure children’s homes, mental health units (some examples)
We accept all referrals including post sentence and non-recent crime referrals to Restorative Gloucestershire which does not mean a restorative intervention will always be undertaken.
Referrals can be victim (harmed), offender (harmer), or family member led, and may be via professional agencies including probation e.g., victim liaison officer VLO, prison offender manager POM, community offender manager COM or family liaison officer FLO
.
Any restorative work will be governed by the individual needs of the victim (harmed) and robust practitioner guided suitability and risk assessments, looking at such things as: level of victim empathy, realistic expectations, nature and recognition of coercive control, therapeutic work undertaken or still needed, motivation for behaviour change, levels of resilience and protective factors (not an exhaustive list). Our work also involves understanding the needs of persons responsible for offending as it is an important part of everyone moving forward.
Any restorative communication between the parties will be facilitated by fully trained practitioners, and may take the form of a carefully managed letter exchange, or carefully managed passing of information / questions, or a carefully managed and well prepared in-person meeting.
Where referrals may be deemed unsuitable for facilitated communication between the parties, there can still be significant benefit in people being part of the decision-making themselves, as well as benefit from a restorative conversation with practitioners.
