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

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The next workshops were held differently and included always staff from all sections of the department. Unfortunately none of them have included staff of Corrections Health Service yet but we are working on this. The workshops provide participants with the conceptual framework of Throughcare, opportunities to discuss it and relate it to their individual work roles. They also provide a chance to identify specific issues in particular local work areas and to discuss them in the context of translating the theory of Throughcare into practice, and suggesting ways to improve working relationships for the benefit of Throughcare. They also provide a forum to identify issues that will impact on future policy development in Throughcare. The latter is particularly important in providing opportunities to staff outside the Sydney metropolitan areas to have an input into the policy process of the Department. Given that sharing information, whole of sentence planning and working in a holistic and integrated manner are key elements of Throughcare, one of the most important aspects of these workshops has been that staff working in different roles within the Department have come together to discuss issues and communicate with each other. Let me give you some examples which highlight the sorts of issues staff in our Department are grappling with when looking at ways of implementing Throughcare. Major Issues I don’t really know in detail what the situation is in other Australian Corrective Services jurisdictions but I hazard a guess that we all are faced with a situation where there is a sort of silo mentality among different groups of staff formed either along professional lines or work location lines. This little story I am going to tell you I’m sure is going to ring bells of recognition: In discussing the need for a department wide resource directory that would be accessible to all staff in the department to assist in discharge planning in correctional centres or community support in district offices, I was told by one colleague that “we’ve already got one of those at our location” the implication being, we’ve got it, so why do you need to develop such a directory? I said that while they might have it at their location, no-one else had access to it and other people in other locations might like have access to it as well! We’ve had some laughs and close calls too. Picture this - the NSW Probation and Parole Service writes about 28 000 pre-sentence reports in a year. That’s a lot of reports. In all the workshops where correctional centre based custodial staff were present, they bemoaned the fact they had a lot of difficulties getting access to pre-sentence reports on offenders coming into custody. Given that not all of the clients for whom PSRs are written go into custody, it’s still a lot of reports which could be passed on to gaols. There is a protocol in place for PSRs to be faxed to the Discharge Summary Unit which forwards them onto the relevant correctional centre. So here you have it - on the one hand a group of staff is adamant that they are providing good and relevant information and on the other hand you have a group of staff wanting this information but say they can’t get it. Now a solution to this may be to take up the suggestion of one of the workshop participants who offered to take himself to the”end of that fax number” to ensure that there actually is a fax machine and that the PSRs do not end up in cyberspace. Seriously though, this story is symptomatic of situation in which each group carries out their business with the best of intentions and there are still no foolproof protocols established which ensure that there is seamless flow of critical information. And it is also symptomatic of a situation in which one hand of the one department does not know 4
what the other one is doing. In the longer term the new e-case management system will enable immediate access to PSRs as required. And of course then the next thing will be to make sure that all those contentious issues related to the sharing of information such as relevance, format, confidentiality and sensitivity are addressed well. As I was saying before, the workshops have the added bonus of staff in different sections of the Department getting a greater understanding of their different roles. To facilitate this process we use a little exercise in which we ask the different groups to describe what they think the role of another group is in the Throughcare continuum. Then we ask the group whose tasks have been described to confirm whether their roles have been described accurately. The results of this exercise can be quite revealing. For example, when a group of Probation and Parole Officers was asked what the role of custodial officers in Throughcare was, one officer said in jest (we hope) that prison officers’ role was to “bash prisoners”. As you can imagine a hush fell over the room. If the four correctional officers present were offended they certainly didn’t show it but they got their own back by making the most thoughtful, intelligent and insightful contributions through the whole workshop. In a way what could have been a complete disaster turned into a perfect ice breaker because while apologising profusely to the whole group, the Probation and Parole Officer’s comments really opened up channels of communication and lively discussions over morning tea and lunch. In the feedback of this session, the majority of participants made the point that they had gained not only greater understanding of the different work roles but a greater appreciation of the challenges each individual workplace faces. Summary Let me sum up - Throughcare is about creating and maintaining links with all staff groups within the Department and relevant community agencies, both government and non government to ensure a continuity of management and care of offenders whilst with the Department of Corrective Services. The most pressing priority for the next year will be the setting up of the e-case management project which includes the ‘scoping’ of this project for a whole of Department perspective and this of course will include wide ranging consultations. While the notion of Throughcare is based on sound research findings, and while everybody working in the field of corrections seems to believe that Throughcare is the right way to go, there is still much work to be done to implement it properly and effectively for the benefit of reducing recidivism. It is clear that resources and systems are needed to make it all work, equally important is that people working in the throughcare continuum adopt a mind set which allows them to be constantly aware of the whole context within which the work needs to be done and not just their own particular section of it. Instead of an intricate flow chart on paper, throughcare must become a flowchart in our minds. 5
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