Editorial

Citation

Gredecki, N. and Ireland, C. (2015), "Editorial", The Journal of Forensic Practice, Vol. 17 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-04-2015-0026

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Forensic Practice, Volume 17, Issue 3.

Neil Gredecki and Carol Ireland

Welcome to the current issue of the Journal of Forensic Practice. This issue consists of seven papers covering a broad range of subjects relating to forensic practice.

The issue starts with an invited paper from Dr Caroline Logan and Dr Jo Ramsden. This is a topical paper focusing on partnership working, highlighting what the authors consider to be its essential component parts and principles. The paper makes reference to the implementation of the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Strategy in the UK and partnerships between NHS providers and custodial and community-based practitioners in the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Drawing on the authors’ experiences of partnership working, the paper articulates how NHS/NOMS partnerships have been developed and experienced. Concluding with a very helpful discussion of a number of principles for partnership work in relation to the OPD Strategy, the paper has practical utility in terms of supporting other services in the process of collaborative working.

Four papers follow that are related to interventions with forensic clients. The first of these papers by Catherine Roberts, Professor Jason Davies and Dr Richard G. Maggs describes two community-based schemes implemented in a low-secure mental health setting. In this paper, the authors explore the acceptability, feasibility and sustainability of the projects along with the views and achievements of participants. Here, it is proposed that positive risk taking enabled individuals to participate in a safe and structured way and evaluation of the projects suggests that they were viewed as acceptable by the service and valued by participants. Participation led to some individuals engaging in new opportunities for vocational and leisure activities. As such, this paper highlights how fostering access to community-based occupational opportunities for those in low-secure mental health services can be achieved safely and with numerous apparent benefits. This has potential implications for practice within secure services.

The next research article is by Dr Jeremy Sandbrook, Dr Tom Clark and Dr Karen Amanda Cocksedge. Further to research conducted in 2006 by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Research and Training Unit that concluded that the provision of substance misuse treatments in Medium Secure Units (MSUs) at that time was inadequate; this study investigates how services may have developed over time. The data suggest rates of substance misuse within MSUs have reduced and provision of treatment has increased in recent years. However, many MSU staff are not receiving adequate training in substance misuse treatments, with some MSUs not having a cohesive strategy consistent with best practice. The authors report that there is no other source for this information and this study provides an up-to-date overview of the provision of treatment for substance misuse within MSUs.

Dr Catherine Gardner-Elahi and Sannam Zamiri’s paper then discusses two ways in which Collective Narrative Practice has been used in a Low-Secure Forensic Recovery Service. In this study, Collective Narrative Practice offered service users the opportunity to enhance their narratives of strength and desistance, and to contribute socially by sharing this with others; thus encouraging identities beyond the “patient” and “offender”. It gave service users the opportunity to take a position of expertise and power where they were listened to and respected. The therapeutic interventions described offer a promising approach that has not yet been fully exploited for use in forensic mental health services, including a novel approach to collective narrative practice.

The final addition to this group of papers is by Kevin O’Sullivan, Dr Richard Kemp and Dr David Bright from the University of New South Wales, Australia. This is a general review paper that lays the groundwork for a narrative approach to the study of desistance that is both quantitative and qualitative. The paper suggests that over the last 15 years, authors have attempted to formulate: an integrated theoretical view of desistance incorporating agency and a clinically useful understanding of how self-story is important. This review traces the strands of research since 2001 that have made self-story an important theme in the study of desistance. In terms of implications for practice, the authors report that if it is found that a measure of self-belief correlates with desistance from crime then it may be possible to devise psychological interventions to enhance and change self-belief. The paper proposes adding a quantitative approach to the measurement of self-story in order to estimate the likelihood of desistance.

The focus of the issue changes with the next paper by Dr David Murphy and Karen McMorrow that is concerned with the topic of staff working with individuals with an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) in high-secure psychiatric care. Here, the authors explore how the difficulties and needs of this client group are viewed by staff and the extent to which staff have unmet needs in working with ASCs. Based on questionnaire data, the authors state that the majority of the staff participating in the study reported making adjustments in their practise and believed patients with an ASC were more vulnerable than other patient groups. Half of staff expressed the view, that whilst patients with an ASC benefited from therapies, they were unaware if an individual’s difficulties were considered in their care. Furthermore, half of staff believed individuals with an ASC should be managed in a different way, suggesting that they did not have adequate skills in working with ASC. It is argued that whilst progress has been made with implementing the government’s Autism Strategy (2010) within HSPC, more awareness training is required in promoting staff confidence to work with this group of patients. This paper is useful for other services working with this client group.

Continuing with a theme of staff, the next paper by Katie Marlow, Dr Belinda Winder and Helen Jane Elliott seeks to gain an insight into the experiences of female staff working with transgendered sex offenders in a prison setting. Having used semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of six staff, thematic analysis is used and three themes identified. Despite the specificity of the sample, this research paper provides insight into the current state of care and management of transgendered offenders in custody and the nature of interactions between staff and this minority group. Here the authors illustrate a number of implications for practice around collaboration, boundary setting and staff education relating to the possible ways in which a transgendered identity can impact on criminogenic needs.