Paved with Good Intentions: The Way Ahead for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector Organisations

European Journal of Probation

Horan²

2021

Opt-in, open-ended mentoring for people with convictions, allowing them to dip in and out of services without sanction arguably offers a service configuration to match the paradigm of the zig-zag, nomadic desistance journey. Balancing supporting individual’s agency while avoiding fostering dependency is tricky. What are the conditions which support the former and avoid the latter? We aim to answer this question by drawing on the lived experience of mentees and mentors collected during the evaluation of a mentoring scheme in England. We consider whether mentoring is unequivocally a ‘good thing’. Despite its ubiquity, the evidence for its effectiveness is mixed. We suggest that it is possible to get too much mentoring, and advance the evidence base in the United Kingdom and internationally in other jurisdictions by proposing enhancements to the ‘effectiveness framework’ set out by the prison and probation service in England and Wales.

Section: Hmpps Framework -Principles/themesmentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Dependencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Mentoring: Can you get too much of a ‘good thing’? Proposing enhancements to the ‘effectiveness framework’ the England and Wales Prison and Probation Service

European Journal of Probation

Horan²

2021

“…The effective engagement of people with convictions of course is not just a concern for probation supervisors but for other agencies providing services for them. Voluntary sector (VS) agencies have long claimed an exceptionalism in such engagement by dint of: the voluntary nature of their services, individuals can opt‐in or opt‐out; they are generally open‐ended, that is, non‐time limited; and individuals can disengage and re‐engage at any time without penalty or compulsion (Martin et al. 2 016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Needs Assessment in the Effective Engagement of People with Convictions

Horan

2020

Howard J Crime Justice

We argue for the potential for needs assessment and sentence planning to transcend their core justice functions and set the tone for effective engagement between probation supervisee and supervisor. We draw on lived experience – analysis of interview and observational data from probation supervisors and supervisees, collected during the testing of a new needs assessment and sentence planning tool which aims to integrate the risk, needs, responsivity (RNR) model with desistance principles. After testing the findings against established models and principles of effective engagement, counter‐intuitively, we found that: disagreement can lead to agreement and more effective engagement. Additionally, that attention should be paid to the potential for the physical case management and supervision environment to positively influence the needs assessment and sentence planning process. These and the other findings have implications for policy and practice in the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions where probation is a core criminal justice function.

“…Commentators have suggested that the involvement of VCS agencies with offenders in the community and custody has a different function and role from that of probation and prison staff (Maguire , ; Martin et al . ; Meek, Gojkovic and Mills ; Mills, Meek and Gojkovic ; Tomczak ; Tomczak and Albertson ). Third, given the greater reliance on VCS services to work with offenders, there is a need for VCS provision to be more evidence based.…”

Section: Developing a Vcs Offender Engagement Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, the effective offender engagement model developed by NOMS (Copsey and Rex 2013) based primarily on risk-need-responsivity principles (Bonta and Andrews 2010) for probation practitioners, at first glance does not appear to be wholly applicable to the terms of VCS engagement with offenders. Commentators have suggested that the involvement of VCS agencies with offenders in the community and custody has a different function and role from that of probation and prison staff (Maguire 2012(Maguire , 2016Martin et al 2016;Meek, Gojkovic and Mills 2010;Mills, Meek and Gojkovic 2011;Tomczak 2017;Tomczak and Albertson 2016). Third, given the greater reliance on VCS services to work with offenders, there is a need for VCS provision to be more evidence based.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Voluntary Sector Model for Engaging Offenders

Kinsella

Meadows

2018

Howard J Crime Justice

This article proposes the development of a distinct offender engagement model for voluntary and community sector agencies, recognising the contribution of: reciprocity, reliability, consistency, and emotional pleasure, to effective offender engagement. Drawing on empirical data from users of a voluntary sector programme in England for young adults, this article makes an original contribution to the evidence base by: identifying the key elements (within the programme) of effective engagement with offenders; seeing how this relates to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) engaging practitioner model and companion literature review and considers the implications for voluntary sector criminal justice policy and practice.