Service User Forum

I am now making contact with people who are demonstrating desistance while being supervised by ASPT.  I’m pleased that they are prepared to speak to me about their lives and to give me feedback to help to improve the work that we do.

I spoke today with Steven Duncan who is a talented spoken word poet.  I heard him speak at ASPT staff conference earlier in the year and he was the highlight of the day.  Steven has a great interest in desistance and is a living example of how it can be achieved.  It is really exciting that ASPT will be working with him further and I’m looking forward to speaking with him more.

We discussed service user forums and he identified the benefits of ex-offenders working with those who are currently supervised. 
I’ve listened in the past to individuals that I have worked with about how they would like to speak with someone with similar experiences to themselves.  It is certainly an approach worth exploring.

As a result of speaking with Steven, I spent this afternoon looking at ex-offender support.  There are numerous resources and support services out there.  I was familiar with User Voice (www.uservoice.org) due to their input in The Road from Crime film.  The input and knowledge of this organisation is, as I understand, being from having ex-offenders being heavily involved in it.  User Voice also informed practice in Leicestershire and Rutland Probation approaches to service user involvement (see links).   It is essential that Probation Trusts encourage involvement and feedback to support desistance.

As part of the project I will be setting up a service user forum to encourage more communication with service users about the work we do with them.  How will I find the best way to approach this? By speaking to service users about what they think will work will be a good starting point.