FOWSA

Developing a Whole Systems Approach for Female Offenders in Lancashire & Cumbria.

A Summary From Our FOWSA Report:

Across Lancashire and Cumbria there was a disconnect with organisations delivering services and interventions for women in the criminal justice system (CJS). It was identified strategically that in order to establish a clear WSA model a formalised collaborative approach was required. Utilising the learning from multiple organisations allowed the opportunity to initiate an approach which would use a women’s journey through the CJS, identify significant gaps, understand failings from childhood through to adulthood, how measurement tools influence them and their families and ensure that the woman was pivotal in making the decisions which impact her own life.

What is a 'Whole System Approach' (WSA)?

To us that means connecting up lots of different services.

This approach compares to the women we work with. In simple terms, we know womens lives don’t exist in convenience compartments, they over lap, interweave, they work, they stop working, they’re lovely, they’re horrible! If an organisation is trying to help a woman thrive not just survive in whatever shape…they’re changing the whole part not just one part. In essence, not just their broken arm but their whole body.

Across Lancashire, women within the Criminal Justice System often have distinct issues and need a tailored approach of support to reduce the risk of them reoffending.

What's happening in Lancashire?

* She is often penalised and sentenced to custody for lower level offences. The impact of a custodial sentence in most cases is not beneficial.

* She is frequently serving short term custodial sentences as a result of breach or non-violent offences despite the evidence to suggest that most of the solutions can be found outside the prison walls!

* She often faces problems with accessibility to services particularly if she's a carer for children or other adults. Also, if she's employed or sex working, she struggles to access services during specified opening hours. Leading to services quite often being restrictive and her engagement lessens.

* She's identified as ‘too complex’ for a service or not eligible for services as the threshold need is to high or often not high enough! She then builds fear around rejection and she doesn't engage with other services.

* She feels she has to re-tell her story to many different providers, so she feels like she can never fully move on. By providing a multi-agency approach including treatment for mental health and substance misuse, protection from domestic violence, debt management, securing housing and obtaining or sustaining employment training or education, enables her to begin with steps that she can take control of life, care for their children and family members and address the cause of her offending behaviour.

All of which can be provided through an alternative to custody such as a community order.

* Across Lancashire there are a wide range of services available however very little that offer a gendered approach where women can visit a safe, female only space. This not only impacts on her engagement when it comes to being asked to attend groups that consist of both male and female participants but lacks a gender specific perspective on offending behaviours and complex needs that women face. We know a gender-informed approach addresses the root cause of a problem such as previous trauma of abuse.

* lack of funding and resources often causes judgement on whether she's ‘more eligible’ as appose to just being eligible overall. This then creates demand and pressure on services to cater for these individuals needs. Every women that walks through our door is supported in the best possible way we can, funding is tight and therefore it can become difficult for provision to meet demand.

What we've achieved over the 3 years...

1. We've integrated the initiative into key strategic roles across our organisation to create long term sustainability.

2. Two Female Offender Boards (FOB) have been established and both chaired by NPS with links to both the Strategic and Local Reducing Reoffending Boards.

3. We've supported the further development of a WSA in Cumbria which faces particular challenges in terms of geography and locality.

4. We've built data to identify and articulate areas of unmet needs in provision for female offenders in Lancashire and Cumbria and developed a collaborative multi-agency action .

5. We've supported the wider engagement of key missing strategic partners, in particular those from health and substance misuse, into Lancashire and Cumbria WSA activity. This improved the process of referral to key support services.

6. We've supported the wider involvement of grass roots women’s groups into current WSA provision in Lancashire and Cumbria, and ensured that these groups have increased capacity to support the WSA (including understanding of the theoretical underpinning of the WSA approach, improved data capture, meeting expected standards in service provision (e.g. safeguarding) and by providing voice.

7. We've completed strategic work to target key groups of female offenders who are currently underrepresented (or who are experiencing poorer outcomes) in particular we have identified younger women, BAME women, LGBTQi+ women, and those with children.

8. We've enabled the improved articulation of the Lancashire and Cumbria WSA and a wider dissemination of best practice and learning from this activity, both locally and nationally. We believe this to be key to embedding and sustaining this approach in times of continued austerity

What we've found:

• 85.7 % of the women we've supported are from Lancashire with 8.7% from Cumbria.

• Their mean age is 35.76 (SD = 11.27) and median 34. 622 women (13%) are aged 50 or over.

• 69% of women identify as White, while 3% identify as mixed or BAME. The remaining 27% have not known or not stated ethnicity.

• Most women (52%) identify as heterosexual with 2% each for the bisexual and gay/lesbian categories. The remaining 44% have non-stated, “not sure” or no answer recorded. In terms of exit outcomes there is significantly higher positive exit proportion for the heterosexual group – indicating that more may need to be done for others.

• Lancashire Women’s users include significant numbers with physical disability (23% users/73% of those with a response), long-term physical health condition (22% users /26% of respondents) and/or a long-term mental health condition (20% all users but 37% of those with any response). Large proportions also gave answers of Not sure or Not stated, and some had no answer recorded, indicating that stigma in asking or answering these questions may also be playing a role in the reported disability and conditions. Physical disability appears not to impact exit, but long-term physical health and mental health condition response does correlate.

• For the 1872 events where any risk of serious harm status was recorded for women engaged on our Justice & Safety programme only 40 or 2% were reported as having High risk, while a further 785 or 42% were seen as Medium risk; the remainder were classed as low risk.

• For the women in FOWSA projects, 146 women or 3% report they are currently experiencing domestic abuse. A higher number of women, 688 women or 14.1% , report some past experience of domestic abuse. For the remaining women, either they have not experienced domestic abuse or they do not wish to respond to the question. A higher proportion of women report needs around domestic violence in the presenting needs questions (22.5%).

• Another characteristic recorded for some users is ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) score. For the 2073 women with an ACE score, the mean number of ACE factors was 3.57 (SD = 3.14). Median number of ACEs was 3. A total of 884 women, or 43%, have 4 or more ACE factors). The most common factors for service users were Parental Divorce or Separation (46%) and Bereavement or loss of a significant family member (45%). The least-reported ACE factor is Physical Neglect (20%).

• Offences were reported for 3493 users. The most common offence type is Theft Offences (commonly shoplifting), with 796 women or 23% of service users having at least one reported incident of this type. Drink Offences, Public Order Offences (e.g. Drunk and Disorderly charges), and s.39 Assaults are also common offences encountered.

• We investigated how many users made use of any of LW’s other programmes. Overall, the most common programmes for Justice & Safety users to also use were Counselling/Therapy (15%) and Money Advice (12%). In total 1113 of the 4878 Justice & Safety users (22.8%) use or are referred to at least one other Lancashire Women programme. In the Exit analysis in section 3.1 it was shown that participating in any other programme is significantly correlated with positive exit.

* 87% of women engaged in services, those who engaged in service for a longer period of time were more likely to achieve a positive outcome, some people would enter and exit service then re-enter at a later date at which point positive outcomes were more likely to be achieved, this is due to the engagement levels at a second referral whereas on a first referral individuals may not of engaged for a number of reasons such as present state of mind after sentencing or the need to addressing other presenting needs such as substance misuse before engaging in other services of support.

* The mean number of total sessions attended with us is 10, and 75% attended 12 or fewer. Mean attendance range for those attending at least one session is 15 months (over 1 year) and 11 hours, but median date range is lower: 280 days (9 months). We understand that those of an older age are more likely to engage and complete a positive outcome as appose to those of a younger age group as well as people who reside in the Cumbria area.

* While there is no difference in outcomes for women of different races, women with any ethnicity recorded (either White or grouped BAME categories) have higher chance of positive exit than those with no response recorded or a response of Not Stated. This may tie with engagement with the service. Users identifying as heterosexual have significantly more positive exits than those with any other sexuality answer, including Gay, Bisexual, Not stated and Not known. This suggests that more work can be done to support non-heterosexual women.

* There is a significant link with exit and having a long-term mental health conditions, with those answering “No” (57%) appearing to have more chance of positive exit than those answering “Yes” (44%) as well as those with lesser ACE scores more likely to complete with a positive outcome.

We couldn't do it alone...we've worked with:

Lancashire Strategic Reducing Reoffending Board – A multi agency group reporting to the County Chief Executives Group.
Sodexo/Cumbria and Lancashire Community Rehabilitation Company
Other CRC supply chain providers under the current CRC Contract – including CroPT, Shelter, CASS and PACT.
National Probation Service
Achieve Career Connect North West
Lancashire and Cumbria Constabulary’s and our offices of Police and Crime Commissioners
Public Health Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool and Cumbria.
HMP Styal, Low Newton and Askham Grange
Clinical Commissioning Groups for the area
Substance misuse services
DWP
JCP

Thank you MOJ

The funding from the MoJ allowed us the opportunity to challenge previous delivery models, understand from the women we have supported, what worked well and what didn’t, what the gaps where and therefore change how we collectively delivered our services. This in turn has allowed us to secure additional funding utilising our new approach with lessons learned, evidence-based interventions and the use of data.