Item 12 - Community Justice Partnership - CPWD
West Dunbartonshire Council · 20 February 2025
Back to Community Planning West Dunbartonshire Management Board — 20 February 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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1 Management Board Meeting Community Planning Partnership Highlights and Issues Report FOR INFORMATION ONLY X FOR DECISION Name of Partnership Community Justice Partnership Date of report 27/01/2025 Name and email of lead contact Lesley.James@west-dunbarton.gov.uk 1 Highlights of activity and progress since last meeting Working/Steering Group Updates: ➢ Arrest Referral Scheme The group has met to consider the preferred model of service delivery and the roll out of the ARS locally. The group is awaiting a national steer from Police Scotland and development remains ongoing. The group has also scoped the use of DBI in custody and also the potential for the Penumbra Mental Health resource to be used as part of ARS. The group is also considering alcohol in custody and the new framework from SHAPP. National Police Healthcare in Custody have developed a new ToM (Targeted Operating Model) that the group will consider at a local level. ➢ Custody to Community There has been lots of activity in the group due to changes in sentencing guidelines for long term prisoners and also early release of prisoners at the end of 2024. The group is working on a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) for sharing information with services to ensure that any risk is managed appropriately and that victims are safeguarded. The DSA (Data Sharing Agreement) is with WD legal department for consideration and agreement. The preferred contractor for Voluntary Throughcare has been confirmed (a public embargo is in place until the Scottish Government make an official announcement). The lead agency for WD is Action for Children and a host of connection opportunities will be available in the forthcoming weeks. The group requires to consider information sharing with services that are available to those on short term sentencing to ensure that everyone who is eligible, is offered a service to support successful reintegration back into the community.
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2 ➢ Prevention and Early and Effective Intervention Partners are still considering data and data mapping across and between services. It is intended that this exercise will support the Strategic Needs and Strengths Assessment by identifying gaps in early ad effective intervention supports for young people. It will further help the group to partnership work and ensure that services are aware of intervention and provision that they can sign post onto. Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs (SFAD) ‘Routes’ project and WD Working 4U have partnered up to provide a targeted approach to employability for young people on the fringes of justice. The service agreement is being developed and young people will be provided with a specialist employability services to support them to positive destinations. The group is considering a life skills programme in partnership with SQA and West College Scotland. The group is considering what is on offer and how we bring it all together into one cohesive work strand that will benefit young people in terms of national qualifications. The group is also considering this activity as part of diversionary activity in the local authority. There has been a Strategic Needs & Strengths Assessment (SNSA) undertaken for embedding the Care and Risk Management (CARM) framework. This assessment outlines the strategic undertakings required to fully embed the CARM process in the local authority with all partners fully informed and, where necessary trained in the model. The assessment is with senior managers for scrutiny. ➢ Women and Justice The group has been considering the health needs of women who are part of the justice system and how to reach disaffected women who are difficult to engage with. The group are considering a ‘whole systems’, ‘whole woman’ approach to engagement and intervention. The group is seeking to map the journey of women at every potential point of their justice journey and seek to improve safety, confidence in services and mitigate service generated risk. The WSSS, Community Justice Co-ordinator and SafeLives have collaborated to undertake a piece of Authentic Voices research exploring the experiences of women supported by justice services. 8 women participated in the qualitative research – contributing via semi structured interviews. The Discovery Report is due to be completed and ready for dissemination by March 2025. ➢ Authentic Voices The group is working on the development of discovery research to better understand experiences of justice and partner services. There has been consideration to a draft survey that was inherited from an external agency – the group has decided that this is not the best option and we are now looking at mirroring the Women in Justice discovery activity format – following a semi structured interview with 8 questions. The group will consider the proposed new format at the next meeting.
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3 Currently, there is no standard minimum consent pack for those who contribute their lived experience to support the shaping and development of services in WD. The CJP AV group is working in partnership with the Strategy & Transformation team to create a pack and ensure that this is provided to all potential authentic voice contributors to safeguard informed consent and an ethical framework for engagement. ➢ Caledonian Systems Steering Group The group is functioning well and a SOP is underway to ensure that services are working together to safeguard effective risk management of perpetrators on the Caledonian men’s programme and effective safety planning for adult and children victims supported by the WSSS. The group is working on performance and audit activity and have created a draft ‘Sampling Tool’ for quality assurance and outcome improvement activity. The tool seeks to analyse the quality of Caledonian assessments as well as judiciary decision making in regard to social work assessments and reports. The tool is still under development and is intended to steer audit activity and enhance assessment performance. ➢ Employability The Lennox Partnership (TLP) are the contracted employability specialist assigned to justice services in WD. TLP are co-located with Justice Social Work one day per week to encourage referrals to the service. TLP are also part of integrated case management pre-release from prison, to ensure that employability needs are considered before release. TLP and Community Justice hosted information and awareness raising sessions for housing/homelessness staff to promote and raise visibility of the services. TLP will contribute to multiagency information sessions throughout 2025. Early Release (ER) of Prisoners Scheme/ Legislative Changes to Planned Releases (PR) Since autumn 2024 SPS have engaged with the emergency release of prisoners to ease pressures on SPS. Recently new legislation has been ratified to change sentencing guidelines and prisoners will now serve up to 40% of their sentences as oppose to 50% - with the rest of their sentences supervised in the community. WD Custody to Community working group has responded to and supported these changes by taking a co-ordinated agency/services approach to risk and risk management – ensuring robust communication and process pathways across and between stakeholder partners. Training; Information & Awareness Raising Sessions; & Trauma Informed Practice DAAMH – Intersectionality Training (Domestic Abuse, Addictions & Mental Health) was piloted as part of 16 days of activism in Nov- Dec 2024. The training was received well and will be delivered twice across 2025. Trauma Skilled practice training is being delivered to justice admin and housing staff on the 12th/13th February 2025. This will contribute to developing the skills of a trauma responsive workforce. Justice Services & partners will be hosting Information and Awareness Raising sessions throughout 2025; delivery is planned in February (fully booked), May (fully booked), August and November. Partners include: Community Justice;
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4 Caledonian Systems; The Lennox Partnership; DACA; Alternatives; Recovery Community; and Sfad. Justice Conference 2025 Conference planning is well underway with keynote speakers and spotlight events confirmed. The conference will take place in the Civic space in Church Street on the 6th June 2025. The spotlight events will take place in Church street ground and 1st floor meeting rooms. Hospitality will be provided by WD recovery communities. Logistics are being considered in terms of movement of people in the building. WD Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan 2024-2027(CJOIP) & End of Year Report (EYR) September 2024 CJOIP: The strategic outcome improvement plan has been ratified by the Community Justice Partnership, and partners are united in the delivery plan arrangements. The Outcome improvement plans aligned to National Aims is attached at Appendix 1 EYR: This return was sent to the Scottish Government in September 2024. The report was well received and is attached for noting at Appendix 2 2 Outline of any issues/risks and how these are being managed Budgets and capacity are an ongoing issue for community justice – this is a national issue and hopefully we will see a bigger investment in community justice with the presumption towards liberty and away from custodial sentences. Issues or risk will be identified and assessed in the Strategic Needs and Strengths Assessments and identified at working/steering groups. These will be reported to the CJP for escalation where necessary. 3 Outline of the main outputs expected before next meeting Progress reporting update from all working groups and wider activity. 4 What are your requirements of partners in the Community Planning Management Board to achieve the outcomes of the DIG? ➢ To support the CJP to deliver locally on the ‘National Strategy for Community Justice’ at a local level. ➢ To support the CJP with the uncertainty (nationally) regarding funding and budgets to support the local delivery of the strategy. ➢ The CJP will be required to identify funding to deliver the local CJOIP and associated activities.
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5 5 Please outline any good news story you wish to share WD Justice services have worked closely with a local 3rd sector partner offering gym and wellbeing services. A partnership approach to applying for funding was adopted and D-Unit Community Hub was awarded funding to support Justice service Users on their recovery, rehabilitation and wellness journey. Early planning is underway to ensure safety for the community hub and justice service users. This is a significant positive outcome for justice services – there has been much stigma attached to service users being supported in wellness activity – the arrangement with the local community hub will reduce stigma, reduce barriers, and offer needs led support to optimise successful recovery and rehabilitation into the community. Quotes from DAAMH –Training: 100% of delegates reported that: ➢ the training met their expectations ➢ the training materials were relevant and engaging ➢ the trainers were knowledgeable and able to answer questions ➢ the practical skills development activities were helpful and relevant ➢ the training was relevant to their role ➢ the training will have a positive impact on their day to day practice ➢ they would recommend the training to a colleague “There is still such a long way to go but the work both have carried out today was so well thought out and the amount of knowledge being passed on by both of you is great to learn” “Great training session” “Great course, feel better equipped to identify DV and confidently address or seek help for victims” Appendix 1 Appendix 1 CJOIP.docx Appendix 2 Appendix 2 EYR 2024.docx