Approaches to support desistance

The work in Avon and Somerset Probation Trust (ASPT) over the past 18 months, has been to encourage, enable and support staff to utilise their skills in effective ways to support the desistance process of the people that they work with.  An integral part of this project has been to increase staff awareness about desistance
and how to support it instead of frustrating it.  There is more awareness and this has been evident in the discussions and meetings I've had with staff.  In the development of this project, it has now culminated in devising approaches that support desistance, based on existing research and research carried out in ASPT.  Staff have now attended workshops introducing these approaches and ways to measure them.

Desistance is an individualised process and therefore it's a challenge to devise approaches that can be used for a wide range of needs and individual characteristics.  There is a difference, I believe, in using a process of working with people where tasks are done to them in a prescriptive manner, compared to having an approach that is adaptive to an individual's circumstances, capacities and opportunities.  The difference is that a worker can tailor any intervention or style of working to be effective based on where a service user is in their desistance process.  This isn't possible if there's a rigid process that doesn't take into account, for instance, a recent breakdown in social bonds.

Critically thinking and challenging yourself, as a practitioner, to be creative in your way of working can be supported by having some form of guidance, or resource of approaches, that may help to support change.  In a similar way to having a case discussion with a colleague, thinking about approaches to support desistance may enable workers to utilise their skills in a different way that may be more effective.  

The use of approaches isn't about teaching new skills or ways of working, it is instead more about shifting the focus and encouraging practitioners to consider how desistance is supported or frustrated, instead of following a process that may not be relevant, effective or could significantly hinder progress.  This broader thinking encompasses the language used with service users, the content of letter and even the messages conveyed in the posters in reception areas.  For desistance to be best supported it should be considered by all probation roles, all levels of seniority and in the all varieties of contacts with service users.