The challenges of implementing Throughcare - Australian Institute of ...

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Introduction It was with keen excitement and enthusiasm but also with a dash of trepidation that I took on the position Project Director for Throughcare Strategies in the NSW Department of Corrective Services in June last year. Since then I have had some pretty sobering reality checks so now I would describe my attitude as one of realistic optimism and I am enjoying the opportunity today to share with you some of the experiences I have had in trying to put Throughcare on the map of the Department of Corrective Services. So let me just briefly set the context for you. Departmental Context My Department in New South Wales is responsible for the management of correctional centre inmates and offenders in the community supervised by officers of the Probation and Parole Service. There are 27 gaols housing nearly 8,000 inmates (about 500 of whom are women) and there are 66 Probation and Parole district offices managing 18,000 offenders on community based orders. There are approximately 6000 of us who are employed by the Department and this number includes about 500 staff in Probation and Parole. In line with international trends, one of my Department’s core corporate objectives is to apply effective measures to reduce the rate of re-offending. In the case of our Department, Throughcare is the primary strategy to positively impact on recidivism. Definition I should say up front that although throughcare is ‘new’ in terms of official strategy, it is certainly not ‘new’ in terms of many of the every day work practices carried out by a large number of our colleagues. But it becomes a bit challenging though when such established work practices are to be articulated into formal departmental policy. I felt that a formal departmental definition of throughcare was needed to inform our own staff about what it actually is and how they fit into the throughcare concept. In this sense it is not only the definition itself which is important but the discussions surrounding it are also crucial. The definition then can also be used to inform other departments and agencies who work with people in the criminal justice system about what my Department is trying to achieve. Let me give you just one example of the difficulties we ran into in defining the complex departmental concept of Throughcare in one all encompassing but short and to the point sentence: if the focus of throughcare is to provide support to avoid re-offending, who are the people who need this support? Clients, inmates, offenders, ex-offenders - this is not being obsessed with semantics! If we don’t know whom we are talking about within what context, we certainly don’t know how to provide appropriate services and support. Well, the definition we have come up with goes like this: Throughcare is the co-ordinated and integrated approach to the management of people who are the responsibility of Corrective Services from their first point of contact with the Department to the completion of their legal order, including their re-integration into the community. You will not be surprised to hear that this definition is still a work in progress and if you have any comments, suggestions and ideas about how this definition can be expanded and/or improved, we can maybe discuss this over a conference break. 2
It became clear to me early in my position that staff are embracing the concept of throughcare with enthusiasm, albeit cautiously mainly because of the need for far reaching change and resource implications. Despite the fact that much ‘throughcare’ already occurs, if the central objectives as outlined in this definition are to be achieved, a significant change in the way the Department carries out its business still needs to occur. For example, meaningful and timely sharing and exchange of information across the department itself are essential and everyone involved in the management of offenders must be quite clear about their responsibilities either as a giver or receiver of information. Resources So here I was 12 months ago all dressed up and ready, spending a lot of time talking about Throughcare with different groups of staff in different forums in community offices and correctional centres and all sorts of professional groups. I look around and I am all alone. You know the story, resources are not exactly plentiful. But I have been successful in drawing on personnel resources from other sections of the Department by cajoling and wheedling colleagues and roping them into giving me all kinds of different supports - and it worked. As such I have become a living monument to effective throughcare stretching across all sections, branches and units of the department. But seriously, there was a need to be clear about the parameters of my role and project to make them both manageable and realistic. For example, the whole issue of throughcare reaching into community support for a person after the completion of an order is important but not my highest priority at the moment. While we are working on partnerships with the community sector and other Government Departments, our main focus for the time being is on bringing our own house in order as far as throughcare is concerned. This means that officers working in correctional centres (ie custodial staff, non custodial staff including centre based Probation and Parole Officers), Probation and Parole Officers in the community, head office staff and corrections health staff work together in a co-ordinated and meaningful way to ensure the provision of seamless service and complementary programs. I am pleased to say that recently new positions have been created and we will be able in the very near future to employ several new staff for the throughcare and electronic case management team. By the way, the further development and expansion of an electronic case management system which allows the recording and sharing of assessments, case notes and case plans electronically across the Department will provide the infrastructure to implement Throughcare. NSW Treasury has provided 7.25 million dollars over three years for this project. I can’t wait to have a team to work with. Workshops A series of workshops which I held over the last 9 months, turned out to be an exceptionally effective strategy to reach a great number of our staff. Now who do you think we invited to these workshops? The participants should come from the different sections rather than just from one of the professional groups. Well, you would think so ... well, we didn’t. The first workshop we held included only Probation and Parole staff - about 65 - but I should say in my defence that it was organised as the result of a specific request from a couple of the district managers of the central coast Probation and Parole district offices. The feedback from the participants in this workshop in one voice was: “where were the non probation and parole staff working in correctional centres, how could Throughcare work without them?” And really that is the crux of the matter. 3
Page 1: THE CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING THOU
Page 5: what the other one is doing. In the

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