Learning Goals Real Life Experience and Personal Experience

Summary/synthesis of what I learned
The goal of the probation program is to help offenders to change for the better and to maintain that change. The probation program also works to ensure communities remain safe even while offenders are given a chance to re-integrate. The mission of probation is to ensure public safety through motivating offenders to change and to lead lives that are free of crime. The mission is achieved via the re-integration of offenders back into their communities, monitoring the offenders, supervising and controlling the offenders, and ensuring the offenders are re-entering in positive and safe environments where they can stay crime-free.
Offenders are usually monitored in various ways to ensure they are living crime-free lives and that they are truly reformed. Some of the ways include getting their telephone and mobile contacts for communication, visiting them at home, carrying out urine screens, referring them to substance abuse therapy or mental health counselling, and so on. During my time as an intern, I ended up performing a number of important tasks that I did not expect to perform in my internship. My tasks mainly involved providing assistance and support for offender community services, sex offender treatment, offender substance abuse treatment, and offender reintegration. I also helped offenders with housing and court costs. My main responsibility in my internship position was to provide assistance and support to probation officers so that they could effectively carry out their duties. This means sometimes I could help with the management of some cases, for example, through conducting interviews with offenders to find out their progress with finding housing, getting jobs, and any issues or challenges they are facing.
When I was just starting out in my internship position, I got assigned to a sex offender probation officer. She was a hardworking officer whom I was tasked to help. She had a total of 32 offenders to supervise. The fact that the only other sex offender probation officer took a leave around the time I started by internship, meant that I got more responsibilities and tasks to handle at the office. I believe this really helped me get the right first-hand experience. As time went on, I got assigned to handle other tasks at the probation office. I worked with officers handling the cases of different types of offenders and I usually managed to handle the tasks that they assigned to me.
I got to enjoy my time as an intern because at the probation office I worked with different types of people handling different types of tasks and cases. The people I worked with really helped me to gain the type of first-hand experience I was going for, while the different types of tasks and offender cases enabled me to know how they are handled professionally. I also got to understand several different processes and advantageous skills that I believe I would be very useful later in my career. I believe I was quite lucky to get internship at the office as it gave me an opportunity to learn new skills and to practice what I have learned in class.
Some of the specific tasks I handled at the probation office included visiting the homes of the offenders with senior probation officers, attending court hearings for offenders under the office’s supervision, contacting employers and community members regarding offenders under the offices supervision, helping write probation reports, meeting with offenders at the office, conducting urine screens, and interviewing offenders through the phone. My internship position was such that I was allowed to make independent decisions and to handle many tasks under minimum supervision. This is because the office was very busy with all the officers having a lot of tasks and responsibilities to handle every day. In a bid to understand the working environment better, I conversed with some of the officers at the office and they told me that at times they get a lot of work that they have to work weekends or past their regular shifts. This has somewhat affected the work-life balance of the officers causing many of them to be stressed and to have relationship strains.
Outcome of internship
Intake
Those who are in sex offender therapy are individuals who have been designated as sex offenders by the justice system after being charged and found guilty of a crime of sexual nature. There are also some cases where people who have been identified to be at-risk to sexually abuse voluntarily enter sex offender therapy to deal with that risk. This normally involves individuals making appointments for treatment because they have either sexually harmed others or believe that they have that risk. Sex offender therapy is treatment available for juveniles, female adults, and male adults. Normally, the treatment is provided separately for females and males. There are special therapies or treatments for juveniles who have sexual behavior issues or problems. Generally, treatment approaches for younger children and adolescents differ from those used for adults. Treatment is often commences with specialized therapists or treatment providers first conducting an evaluation to find out whether treatment will be useful and what type of approach will be most appropriate to utilize.
A treatment approach may involve conversing with a client to establish rapport, providing the client with information about the treatment plan and what is expected of them, and a discussion of the sanctions or penalties should the client fail to follow the treatment plan. Normally, the evaluation is conducted face-to-face with the clients. However, sometimes videos or printed documents are used.
Usually, intake to the sex offender therapy program is considered at the pre-sentencing stage investigations. These investigations are meant to provide presiding judges with comprehensive information about the offender including their prior criminal history, mental health status, medical status, financial status, family status, strengths, special circumstances surround their case, and disposition recommendations meant to balance community safety needs, victim needs, offender needs, and offender accountability. Generally, the investigations are conducted by community supervision officers who are trained and have experience in the management of sex offenders.
The intake evaluation process usually provides a great opportunity to separate sex offenders utilizing risk levels and provides information on how services should be prioritized. To make this process more effective, a research-backed risk assessment tool is often used if one has not been utilized already. Finally, the intake evaluation process also involves employees identifying factors that could become obstacles or barriers to successful reintegration. The identified factors are then discussed by case managers and other staff to find out how best they should be addressed during the development of case management plans. In the case of juvenile or youthful offenders, it is crucial that their guardians or parents are involved in the intake evaluation or assessment process as this provides an opportunity for them to share their perspective and to understand intervention goals, and barriers and needs that should be resolved before the release of juvenile offenders under their care.
Client disposition
In the course of my internship, the intake assessments or first assessments or evaluations for treatment combined empirically-guided assessment measures and protocols to find out what services clients needed, from whom, and the duration. Normally, intake evaluation procedures include the use of:
1. Empirically guided interviews
2. Evaluation of client’s communication and learning ability
3. Collateral interviews
4. Psycho-physiological tests or assessments of sexual arousal or interest
5. Actuarial tools and instruments (e.g. MnSOST-R and Static-2002R).
The purpose of the intake assessment is to produce a report about:
1. The potential risk a client presents when placed in the community and during treatment.
2. A treatment approach that addresses:
· Risks related to sexual reoffending or offending
· Environmental and individual strengths and resources for combating deficits
· Goals and objectives for managing deficits
· Interventions for deficit reduction and strength enhancement
· Criteria for completing treatment
In cases where clients need specialized treatment, the intake assessment focuses on the effective management of behavior to make sure that both the community and clients are safe. The main purpose for writing treatment plans is to assist individuals to rebuild their lives by managing their deficits and building their strengths.
The clients usually have some responsibilities that they must address. The responsibilities include relapse prevention, building personal accountability, and providing aid to their victims. Clients in treatment usually have several goals including:
· Identifying risk factors and helping develop personalized plans to prevent future relapse or abuse.
· Recognizing and decreasing the utilization of manipulative behavior.
· Addressing denial and taking full responsibility and accountability for past behaviors.
· Comprehending the harm caused by their actions to themselves and to others.
· Developing healthy attitudes and behaviors relating to sex.
· Exploring if childhood abuse could have led to current and past behaviors.
The best intervention plans or treatment programs take an approach which considers the client strengths and resources. The idea behind the treatment programs is to help those who have offended to replace their harmful ways of dealing with certain needs with safer ways. Treatment programs usually take the duration identified during intake assessment. A treatment program can be shortened if a client records faster progress. Nevertheless, a treatment program is never declared complete until the client has completely altered their behavior and has started making healthy and safe decisions. For some, the timeframe for attending a treatment program is set and cannot be altered. For others, relapse prevention not only involves actual treatment but is also a lifelong exercise.
Service Delivery Process
The service delivery process entails the matching of services and resources to an offender’s or a client’s needs. It is usually done by a case manager. The offender has several responsibilities including following program requirements and altering their behavior for the better. To make sure service delivery is the best, there is a need for therapists and other experts involved in the treatment to continually read widely and research to improve their treatment plans and prevent their clients from re-offending. Reading widely and researching provides a strong base or foundation for the success of treatment plans.
Service delivery programs include;
Intervention
Therapists for sexual offenders need to be skilled and knowledgeable to ensure that they apply the right treatment interventions. Interventions that they need to use include those that are effective and have been proven to have significant behavior change value including:
· Empathy development
· Education on victim impact
· Self-regulation
· Sex offender reoffending prevention
· Cognitive restructuring
· Parenting classes
· Relationship skills education
· Accountability for past offenses
· Education about healthy and appropriate sexual functioning
· Training on anger management skills
· Training on social skills
· Training on urge control
· Behavior change training to address sexual arousal
· Medication for dealing with arousal control and related mood disorders
· Management of substance abuse
· Training on Good Lives Model
· Vocational training
Progress assessment
The evaluation of a client’s risk and their progress is usually a continuing process. Progress assessments or updated assessments are often empirically guided measures. And are usually done every six months to:
· Check progress made
· Adjust the treatment plans and goals
· Check offender/ client compliance with treatment requirements and supervising agency
· Check for compliance using tools such as polygraphs
Treatment completion
Treatment completion is usually anchored on the assessment of the following:
· Goals set
· The offender’s continuing risk, residual deficits, and their strengths
· The offender’s support system e.g. community contacts, family, and friends
· The offender’s ability to self-prohibit negative and abusive behavior and to continue to use coping skills, healthy attitudes and to seek help when they need it.
· The reduction of the risk to reoffend
Three things you learned about yourself as a “clinical practitioner”.
1. The most important lesson was that it is important to have good communication and listening skills. Communication and listening skills are important as they enable effective communication with clients, supervisors, and fellow staff.
2. That working together with others is a whole different situation to learning and understanding concepts in class. From working together with others I got to understand what day-to-day clinical practitioner work really involves and how depressing, interesting, and shocking it can be at the same time. I also saw how emotionally and mentally exhausted I could be at end of a day full of interviews with offenders/ clients. Nevertheless, as time went by, I got used to the experiences and they became less shocking. I also begun to get along well with the co-workers and things started becoming easier to handle. So my lesson was that the more I work different situations, the more I become familiar with them and the less difficult they become to handle.
3. I learned that there is always room for improvement in the work place and that keeping abreast with new research and information is always very helpful.
Three strengths and three limitations
Strengths
Specialized sex offender supervision increases community safety and reduces recidivism
Sex offenders have unique needs and risks. This is the reason why the bureau of probation and parole opted to have special officers to manage and supervise such offenders. To make sure the officers carry out their duties effectively, the bureau has got a special caseload strategy. The caseloads are as of now managed by twelve officers who are specialists in handling sex offenders, The basic expectation is that the officers work closely with the treatment providers and therapists for the offenders to ensure that their needs and risks are taken care of. The officers work together with therapists and treatment providers by exchanging information especially about progress and level of engagement. The officers also assist offenders to reform, to take on new coping skills, and to avoid risk situations. Judges and members of the Parole Board usually also participate in helping the officers carry out their supervision duties by imposing conditions on the offenders to reduce chances of reoffending and to improve community safety.
Officers usually have baseline evaluation information of the offenders under their supervision that make it easy for them to make case management decisions
Pre-sentence investigations and other investigations and evaluations of the offenders are usually made available to probation officers when the offenders are handed to them for supervision and management. In many cases, the pre-sentence evaluations are generally conducted by the same officers who end up having their offenders as their caseloads. This creates continuity with regards to case management and also makes the officers very familiar with the offenders and their behavior patterns. Pre-sentence investigations usually contain data about the general recidivism risk, the sexual recidivism risk, special risks, and unique needs. The investigations and assessments usually contain recommended interventions and other information that can help with supervision. The other information can include baseline data that the officers can use collaboratively with therapists and treatment providers to help the offenders.
Supervision policies require officers to employ a combination of field and office contacts.
The bureau of parole and probation is aware of how important it is for behavior-changing interactions between offenders and other people to go on in workplaces, treatment settings, and home environments. This is why officers are encouraged to perform more field visits to observe and ensure the offenders under their supervision are in the right track. And it is better off than office-based interviews and contacts since it offers more insight into case management and provides an opportunity for enforcement functions.
Limitations
Sex offender supervision has a singular general model
The lack of official policies for supervising sex offenders has led to the development of several policies that detail the minimum standards for the management and supervision of offenders. Some of the key standards and practices in the policies include:
· Each sex offender should be closely monitored at Level II of supervision for at least the first 6 months.
· Supervision level should not fall below Level III expect when the treatment is declared complete.
· Sexual offender officers should routinely or monthly contact treatment providers serving the offenders they are supervising to get the latest.
· Sexual offender officers should routinely visit and observe treatment groups for offenders under their care.
· Polygraph tests should be conducted occasionally as recommended by supervisor or treatment provider.
While the above standards and practices in lieu of official supervision guidelines are helpful, they do not encourage an individualized approach to supervision. So they are more offense-based and not risk-need based. This makes them less effective and less likely to have a significant effect on recidivism especially when compared with evaluation-driven supervision strategies.
Caseload sizes are sometimes not in agreement with the purpose for specialized caseloads
What is very important for the effective management of caseloads is the need to make sure that the supervision officers only have caseloads that they can effectively handle. That they have limited caseloads that help them to find the time and the resources they need to:
· Connect and to maintain good collaborative ties with treatment providers, therapists, victim advocates, law enforcement, polygraphers, and so on so that they can effectively discharge their duties.
· Create and build partnerships with communities so that they can help sex offenders find employment and housing.
· Better educate communities and the general public about the parole program and how to help.
· Regularly evaluate the risk factors faced by sex offenders.
· Offer specialized supervision in cases where they deem fit.
However, the officers and senior officers at the parole and probation bureau acknowledge that supervision officers have huge caseloads that make it difficult for them to effectively discharge their duties. They also acknowledge that the high caseloads increase the likelihood of officers burning out.
Specialized training is reportedly lacking for P&P officers who supervise sex offenders.
Perhaps the biggest limitation for probation and parole officers is that they lack specialized training. Sex offender specialists should typically by officers who have undergone intense training in sex offender management and have had the chance to work under the supervision of more experienced officers to improve their capacity to provide effective management and supervision of sexual offenders. However, many sex offender specialist officers have in the past expressed concerns about lack of adequate training and about lack of time to prepare to carry out their special duties. Indeed, some of them have in the past reported having no special training; just general training same as other officers.