2015 Sheffield Hallam University

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2 2015 Sheffield Hallam University Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this report is accurate and up-to-date, neither the author nor the publisher can accept legal responsibility or liability for anything done by readers in consequence of any errors or omissions. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publishers. Published by: Hallam Centre for Community Justice Sheffield Hallam University City Campus Sheffield S1 1WB United Kingdom Hallam Centre for Community Justice

3 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all the individuals who participated in the research: service users, project staff at the women's centres, partner agency staff and strategic stakeholders. Without these contributions, this work would not have been possible. Thanks also to our colleague, Jessica Bamonte for formatting and proof reading this report. We would also like to thank Katharine Abbott and Martin Nugent from the Greater Manchester Public Service Reform Team for their assistance with this research and members of the Female Offenders Board, Justice and Rehabilitation Programme Board and the Justice and Rehabilitation Executive Board for their feedback on earlier drafts. Hallam Centre for Community Justice

4 Contents Executive Summary... 1 Introduction... 1 Key findings... 1 Key reflections and points for consideration in the future Introduction... 8 Policy context... 8 Background to the WSA Aims and objectives of the evaluation Methodology Qualitative data analysis Structure of the report Perceptions of the WSA Awareness of the WSA Stakeholder reflections on the WSA What's new about the WSA Rationale for the development/engagement with the WSA Culture and collaboration: the history and the future of women's services in Greater Manchester The genealogy of the WSA Emerging cultures Funding within the WSA The internal alliance: working in partnership or becoming one? The external alliance: building the WSA approach with criminal justice partners Referrals to the women's centres Hallam Centre for Community Justice

5 Demand for the WSA Who has been referred to the services available as part of the WSA Service users and practitioners perspectives on engagement with the women's centres Initial contact with the WSA Women-only space Intensity of engagement Support accessing other services Accessibility and type of support offered Nature of support offered Benefits of the WSA Positive outlook for the future Likelihood of (re)offending Feelings about self Health improvements Developing practical/life skills Reduced risk of harm Streamlined system and reduced demand on other services Analysis of needs data Evidencing outcomes Evidencing outcomes Expectations placed on the women's centres Moving forward Key reflections References Appendix 1 - Women's centre services by area Hallam Centre for Community Justice

6 Bolton: Eve's Space Bury: The Attic Project Manchester and Trafford: Women MATTA Oldham: Partners of Prisoners (POPS) Rochdale: Petrus Salford: Together Women Project Stockport: Stockport Women's Centre Tameside: Tameside Women's Centre Wigan: Wigan Women's Centre Hallam Centre for Community Justice

7 Executive Summary Introduction Although women remain a minority group in the criminal justice system (CJS), there is increasing recognition amongst policy makers of the importance of understanding the needs of female offenders in order to better target resources and provide support that is responsive to these needs. The whole system approach (WSA) that has been funded by Partnership Funds from Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company (CGM CRC), NHS England and resources from the Financial Incentive Model (FIM), a payment by results reward for a reduction in demand on the CJS, 1 aims to embed genderresponsive support for women at three points of the criminal justice system - arrest, sentencing and upon release from prison. Nine women's centres across the boroughs provide the support 'hubs' for women referred via these different routes. The governance and funding of the WSA is overseen by the Justice and Rehabilitation Executive (JRE). The evaluation of the WSA undertaken by the Hallam Centre for Community Justice at Sheffield Hallam University and the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University aims to build on current knowledge regarding the needs of female offenders and to explore how services can best be integrated across the whole criminal justice pathway from arrest to sentence and custody discharge. The learning will provide a foundation from which the approach can be refined with the potential for wider roll-out across other areas. This report provides interim findings focussing on early implementation, with the final report from the full evaluation, including an impact assessment, due in November We undertook a number of activities to meet the aims and objectives of the evaluation. These included a review of project initiation documents and data collection systems; semistructured interviews with service users, women's centre project staff, partner agencies and strategic stakeholders; review of anonymised case studies from the women's centres and analysis of performance monitoring data from the centres. Key findings Perceptions of the WSA Levels of awareness of the WSA and the local and national policy that had informed its development varied between participant groups and appeared to be linked to length and level of involvement with the approach. For some, this integrated and collaborative 1 Throughout the remainder of the report we have referred to this as the Justice and Rehabilitation Executive or JRE funding. At times, this funding is referred to as the 'PCC money' or 'PSR money' in quotes, as this is how participants perceived this funding. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 1

8 approach to working with women offenders was 'nothing new', but the JRE funding had enabled increased capacity across services. Others identified the triage and 'through the gate' referral routes as the new aspects of service delivery. Overall, there was a clear rationale amongst participants for engaging with the approach. Many women's centres were already offering these services, had relevant expertise, skills and experience and a strong commitment to offering gender-responsive ways of working with women. For other centres whose existing provision felt restrictive in terms of space, staffing and types of services on offer, the JRE funding had enabled them to extend and/or tailor their services. For example, by offering a 'women-only' space and increasing staffing to better support a gender-responsive service. At a strategic level, potential cost savings were a key driver for engagement with the WSA, although it was noted that these savings would likely be accrued by the Ministry of Justice rather than at a local level. Alongside cash savings, there was also a belief in the value of reducing the numbers of women being sent to prison and addressing the often disjointed nature of service provision for women. Reducing re-offending and reducing risk for both women offenders and their families was another important rationale for involvement in the WSA amongst some of the partner agencies. The history and the future of women's services in Greater Manchester Central to the WSA are the nine women's centres that operate as central hubs for referrals from the various stages of the criminal justice system. Although the centres are all working towards a common goal (i.e. to provide safe spaces for women where they can begin to address needs that may contribute towards their offending behaviour), they vary significantly in terms of their histories, size, staffing levels, services provided and the drivers underpinning their work. Despite these differences, the creation of a network of women's centres has undoubtedly increased the provision of safe spaces for women across Greater Manchester. Perhaps unsurprisingly, funding was an issue raised across all the interviews and gaps in service provision due to limited funding were identified, for example, being unable to provide crèche facilities and also limited capacity to provide intensive one-to-one casework for every service user. Various funding sources for their work were identified by the women centres, with some being solely reliant on the JRE funding and others receiving funding through other sources such as NHS England. Multiple funding streams presented challenges for women centre staff in terms of differing expectations for service delivery, outcomes and reporting requirements. Uncertainty over future funding was said to impact on staff wellbeing as well as service delivery, due to the high turnover of staff which results from job insecurity in an uncertain funding climate. In addition, the pressure of frequently needing to 're-invent the wheel' to compete for new funding pots was highlighted. Concerns were also raised over external agencies potentially 'spot purchasing' aspects of the service available at the centres, leaving a gap in terms of funding the overall holistic approach. Similarly, funding cuts and the resultant reduction in wider service provision (e.g. mental health and housing) is a potential threat to the holistic approach integral to the WSA. This was particularly Hallam Centre for Community Justice 2

9 concerning given the prevalence of mental health and accommodation needs amongst the women presenting at the centres and the need for centre staff to refer women on to these services for specialist support or advice. For some, a potentially important factor in the long term sustainability of the WSA is the 'internal alliance' which has been created between the nine women's centres as one of the strategic aims of the programme. A wide range of benefits were highlighted in relation to the formation of an alliance including: sharing of best practice; supporting each other; standardising reporting requirements; enhancing referral pathways between centres and ensuring a minimum standard of service delivery for women across the whole of Greater Manchester. However, it was also noted that centres differed greatly in terms of their models of delivery and this variability may present challenges when applying for future funding, if funders have an expectation of standardised provision within an alliance or consortium approach across Greater Manchester. Equally important to the approach are the partnerships between the women's centres and other key stakeholders; Greater Manchester Police (GMP), Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and the National Probation Service (NPS) 2 (previously known as Greater Manchester Probation Trust), problem solving court staff, prison staff and other non-statutory organisations (e.g. accommodation providers or community mental health services). Amongst the partner agencies interviewed, there was a broad understanding of the women's centres and the services on offer but the extent to which all partners recognised the features and values of gender-responsive ways of working was variable, often depending on different levels of involvement with service delivery. Similarly, lower than anticipated numbers of referrals being made to the centres via the different pathways may indicate varying levels of 'buy in' to the WSA amongst the different partner agencies. Whilst there appears to be 'buy in' at a strategic level, the extent to which this is happening among staff 'on the ground' is less clear. Referrals to the women's centres This interim evaluation provides an overview of the women being referred to the nine women's centres between 1 st September 2014 and 30 th June Of the 640 women who were referred to the services during this period, the majority (76%, n=485) were aged 25 or over and were White (77%, n=492). These figures raise questions as to whether younger women (18-24 year old) and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) women have the same opportunities to access the support on offer at the women's centres. Of the 377 women who had their needs assessed at assessment or support planning stage, the vast majority (79%, n=299) had multiple needs (3 or more) and half (51%, n=191) of the women had between four and six needs, highlighting the vulnerabilities faced by this group. A wide 2 Participants often referred to 'probation', 'probation trusts' or the 'probation service' during interviews rather than the CRC or NPS, so at times these terms are used in the report as this reflects participants accounts and roles that existed prior to the introduction of the CRC and NPS under Transforming Rehabilitation. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 3

10 range of needs were identified 3, but the prevalence of problems with mental health and well-being was noted in both monitoring data (79%, n=293) and interviews with services users and project staff. High numbers of women presenting with financial difficulties (56%, n=209), attitudes, behaviour and thinking (54%, n=198), substance misuse (51%, n=191) and accommodation (50%, n=189) were also identified in the monitoring data. In addition, nearly half (47%, n=300) of the women referred had one or more child under the age of 18. The negative effects of involvement with the criminal justice system on women and their families, particularly when women receive a custodial sentence is well documented (Prison Reform Trust, 2013b) and was reflected in evaluation data with 24% (n=151) of women reporting their children were either in care, mixed care (living in multiple locations) or living with relatives. Women's centres were receiving referrals from all of the main referral pathways - CRC community sentence referrals (35%, n=226), NPS community sentence referrals (4%, n=26), police triage (29%, n=187), 'through the gate' (8%, n=51) and the problem solving court (6%, n=36). However, there were variations in the numbers of women being referred via the different routes in different areas and lower referrals than anticipated were reported in relation to the CRC and NPS community sentence referrals, police triage and 'through the gate'. This was particularly notable in relation to the 'through the gate' service, as just 51 women were referred to the women's centres via this pathway during the first 10 months of operation, which is low when compared to indicative figures on the numbers of women who were released from HMP Styal in 2014 (n=347). 4 Probation was described as the most established referral route during interviews, largely due to their existing relationships with women's centres and the introduction of 'women's leads' who promoted gender-responsive approaches to working with women offenders amongst CRC and NPS staff. Although some areas reported positive working relationships with police in their local areas and high referrals as a result of these partnerships, challenges with referrals from police triage and 'through the gate' were also highlighted. These challenges largely centred around women's centre staff not having a consistent presence in custody suites or at HMP Styal, thus being reliant on others to inform women about the services available at the women's centres. Practical barriers were also outlined (e.g. the lengthy vetting process necessary to gain access to HMP Styal). Lower than anticipated referrals and barriers identified in interview data raises questions about whether resources are being spread too thinly across the different CJS entry points to the WSA. Variation in referrals also differed between the women's centres with the length of time centres had been operating and the geographical areas they covered appearing to influence levels of referrals. Uncertainty over which women were deemed eligible to access services 3 In relation to needs at initial assessments, projects report whether there is a 'need identified' or 'no need' for each of the need areas. However, there were also cases with missing data and the numbers of missing cases varied by each need area, so the percentages for each need area are calculated out of different total numbers. 4 This data was provided as part of a Ministerial Briefing that was produced by the Public Service Reform team in September Hallam Centre for Community Justice 4

11 as part of the WSA may also have impacted on numbers of referrals, with some centres initially only working with CJS involved women and not with those 'at risk' of offending. Service users and practitioners perspectives on engagement with the women's centres Engaging women in the services available at the women's centres was highlighted as often being extremely time consuming and resource intensive. At the time of writing it was not possible to obtain a clear picture from monitoring data regarding engagement due to high numbers of cases with missing data (n=343). This may be due to ongoing engagement as this information is collected at case closure or this information may not have been inputted by women's centre staff. Thus we were only able to report on 297 cases. The data available showed that 34% of women (n=101) referred to the centres 'did not engage' and 22% (n=64) attended just one appointment. However, qualitative data revealed that it is often necessary to work very gradually with the most complex women and it may take several months (and great persistence from project staff) for women to get to the point of trusting the service and/or worker enough to frequently access the service. The data also showed that 24% (n=71) of women engaged for 3 months or less and a further 20% (n=61) engaged for 3 months or more. Again, qualitative data offers a more complete picture of the intensive and extremely time consuming nature of the work undertaken with service users who engage with services in the longer term. A number of key enablers for engagement were identified including: the presence of project staff who were perceived by service users as reliable, consistent, non-judgemental, warm and caring; flexibility regarding level and length of engagement; transparent information sharing and supporting women to access other services. This was felt to be an important aspect of the 'one stop shop' model offered in some centres and also necessary to minimise the risk of over-dependence on women's centre provision, given that centres do not have the resources, capacity and in some cases skills or experience to provide specialist support in relation to specific need areas. Ease of accessibility to the women's centres was another important factor in supporting engagement, in terms of both physical location and also facilities available (e.g. crèches) which supported access to the services. Provision of such services varied between centres. The importance of having 'women-only' space was raised in the interviews, particularly given the vulnerabilities and prevalence of domestic violence amongst services users. However, a small number of partner agency staff suggested mixed gender group work may be beneficial to help women to 'deal with men' in the outside world. Project staff however, felt very strongly about the necessity for women-only spaces. Benefits of the WSA A broad range of benefits were identified from the interview data and can be broadly categorised into seven areas; outlook for the future, likelihood of (re)-offending, feelings about self, health improvements, developing practical/life skills, reduced risk of harm and providing a streamlined system and reduced demand on other services. Interviews with Hallam Centre for Community Justice 5

12 service users revealed a strong sense of despair, hopelessness and isolation prior to engaging with the support on offer. However, engagement with the women's centres was said to have given women a sense of purpose, structure to their day, aspirations for the future in terms of employment and volunteering opportunities, improvements in health and opportunities to re-engage with children and families. Feelings of embarrassment, shame, self-loathing and guilt were all evident in service user accounts. These negative selfperceptions could act as a barrier to engaging with support. The development of a positive sense of self was deemed necessary to improve well-being, reduce isolation and build confidence which meant women were less likely to become overwhelmed when issues arose and also actively seek help at times of crisis. What was particularly notable from the service users' accounts was the absence of such intensive and tailored support prior to their engagement with the women's centres. Providing a more efficient service with less duplication and burden upon statutory agencies was also reported as a perceived benefit of the approach. The women's centres were said to offer women somewhere to turn to in times of crisis and were also able to link them in with organisations in the community. This was important given that the statutory agencies which women are involved with may not be aware of or not have the time to research or make links with further available sources of support. Evidencing outcomes As part of the evaluation, performance monitoring data has been analysed to provide information on the numbers and demographics of the women being referred to the centres, referrals routes, types of needs they are presenting with and engagement levels. This is helpful for assessing demand and take-up of service provision. However, it is important for this data to be considered in conjunction with qualitative data from interviews and case studies provided by the women's centres to fully understand the extent and nuanced nature of the work being undertaken by the centres to support women accessing their services. All of the women's centres were committed to measuring and reflecting upon success in order to improve their 'offer' to women and also to assist with accessing future funding. However, their accounts revealed frustrations at the lack of recognition (from commissioners of services and policy makers at all levels) of the huge amount of work involved in building trusting relationships with women who are often very anxious or distrustful of 'professionals', building confidence and empowering women to respond to challenges and move forward in addressing their needs. These outcomes are often the most difficult to capture and measure and are frequently excluded as outcome measures in service delivery contracts. This creates real challenges for service providers in terms of balancing reporting requirements expected of them by funders and their approach to engaging and working with women in a holistic and person-centred way. Thus, it is vital to consider differing definitions of success and look beyond re-offending and cost saving towards a stronger focus on the safety and well-being of women and their families. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 6

13 Key reflections and points for consideration in the future Overall, the WSA to working with women from point of arrest through to release from custody was viewed positively amongst the participants. The creation of women's only provision across Greater Manchester was viewed as a positive move towards addressing the unequal provision that had existed previously and this enhanced provision was felt to be much needed in addressing the very complex needs of women involved with the CJS. Whilst the evaluation revealed many positive aspects to the implementation of the WSA, a number of challenges were also identified, which need to be considered moving forward. These largely centred around: achieving 'buy in' from partner agencies who may be referring women into the centres; the 'types' of women being referred into the women's centres to ensure equality of access is achieved for all women who are eligible for support; the extent to which resources are appropriately spread across the different entry points to the WSA and the adequacy of these resources. Questions were also raised around whether there would be a need to standardise service delivery across the women's centres alliance when applying for future funding in order to enhance the 'attractiveness' of bids. This raised concerns amongst participants, as variation in service delivery was deemed necessary for responding to differing needs in different localities. Similarly, the uncertainty around future funding and potential risks to aspects of service delivery within the WSA due to limited resources were also highlighted. Further key reflections on the interim evaluation findings can be found in Chapter 8 of the main report. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 7

14 1. Introduction Policy context Since the emergence, in the early 1990s, of a number of practice-based initiatives targeting women offenders there have been a series of policy developments which acknowledge, and aim to address gender differences in experiences of the criminal justice system (CJS). The 2002 Women's Offending Reduction Programme and 2004 Action Plan, and 9m funding for the Together Women Demonstration Project to provide holistic support for women offenders were the first tangible attempts to develop approaches designed to meet the gender-responsive 'criminogenic needs' of adult females within the CJS. The Corston Report in 2007 was instrumental in identifying the vulnerabilities of women in the CJS and highlighting the multiplicity and complexity of problems faced by female offenders. For example, overwhelming evidence suggests that mental health problems are far more prevalent among women in prison than in the male prison population or in the general population (Corston Report, 2007; Ogloff & Tye, 2007); self-harm for women prisoners is rife, with the rate of incidents being massively higher for women than for men (MoJ, 2012a); and a high proportion of women in prison have experienced domestic abuse and/or sexual abuse (Prison Reform Trust, 2014). It is clear therefore that women's role as victim often has a direct yet complicated link with their own offending behaviour. Furthermore, the prison system as it stands is particularly unsuitable for women and disproportionately harsher because it has been designed for men. Standard policies and procedures (e.g. searches, restraints, and isolation) have profound effects on women with histories of trauma and abuse (Covington, 2007a). Women are often imprisoned a long way from home leading to isolation from families and communities, thus creating problems for resettlement. Prison takes mothers away from their children, often for the sake of crimes which pose no risk to the public. Around 17,000 children a year are separated from their mothers (Wilks-Wiffen, 2011). Of course, prison also takes fathers away from their children. However, when men are sent to prison there is usually a woman maintaining the home and looking after children, whereas only 9% of children whose mothers are imprisoned are cared for by their fathers in their mother's absence (Corston, 2007). The impact of this separation is huge and emotional and behavioural problems of the children of female prisoners are considerably worse than those of male prisoners (Caddle & Crisp, 1997). The fact that women prisoners are far more likely than men to be primary carers of young children makes the prison experience particularly distressing. This may explain why women offend against prison discipline at a higher rate than men. In 2000, the rates were 256 offences per 100 female prisoners and 159 per 100 male prisoners (Kesteven, 2002). Given this context it is unsurprising that Baroness Corston highlighted the need for reserving custodial sentences for the most serious and violent female offenders who pose a risk to public safety (Corston, 2007). Hallam Centre for Community Justice 8

15 In recognition of the clear need for a gender responsive approach to women's offending, the Fawcett Society established the Gender and Justice Policy Network and published a review of community-based provision for women (Gelsthorpe et al., 2007). In 2012, 3.5m of funding was identified and shared across 30 women's centres working with women offenders, again highlighting continued and current engagement with gender-responsive approaches (Gelsthorpe & Hedderman, 2012). There is currently a high degree of uncertainty among women's centres over the services they will be required to provide under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms and how they are expected to prove that they are effective (particularly in reducing re-offending) when they are invited to tender for future funding within a Payment by Results programme (National Audit Office, 2013). Similarly, a recent survey by Clinks (2015) highlighted the lack of clarity for voluntary sector organisations around what they will be expected to deliver and how they will be resourced to do so under Transforming Rehabilitation. It also noted that the process by which change was expected to take place has been slower than expected which has left many voluntary sector organisations in a state of limbo. While women remain a minority group within the CJS, they are an important focus of UK government policy. In March 2013 the then Coalition Government outlined their strategic objectives for female offenders and the creation of an advisory board with a remit to ensure that the needs of female offenders and those at risk of offending are embedded within policy (MoJ, 2013a) and to assist in the implementation of these objectives, which are focussed in four key areas: Ensuring the provision of credible, robust community sentencing options as alternatives to custody. Addressing the specific needs of female offenders, where different from male offenders. Tailoring the women's custodial estate to enhance the rehabilitation of women and to meet gender-responsive standards including locating women as near to their families as possible. Ensuring collaborative working to enable women to stop re-offending. (MoJ, 2013a) Reflecting the findings of Corston (2007), the plans for reforming the treatment of female offenders recognised that 'many will have been themselves victims too'. To enable providers and commissioners of services to better understand the needs of female offenders and target resources accordingly, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) conducted a process of 'segmenting' the female offender population (MoJ, 2013a), that is separating them out as a distinct group with distinct needs. Indeed, it is significant that there was a requirement in the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) tendering process for Transforming Rehabilitation providers to show how they would offer women-only reporting times and some form of gender-responsive support. Despite the considerable policy interest in women offenders, the evidence base for what works with women remains limited as Gelsthorpe and Hedderman (2012) claim 'we are still Hallam Centre for Community Justice 9

16 in learning mode in terms of how to best measure the impact of the initiatives in regard to women's lives'. However, perhaps reflecting the Governments drive to develop an evidence base into 'what works', NOMS has recently commissioned a rapid evidence assessment (REA) to identify effective interventions for women to reduce re-offending and promote desistance from crime (Stewart & Gobeil, 2015). Whilst this is a promising move in terms of building an evidence base, just one of the 18 studies was conducted in the UK. Thus, as the authors themselves acknowledge this may reduce the relevance of the results to the UK population. Considering the fact the whole system approach (WSA) for women offenders has been implemented in Greater Manchester at a time of considerable change for probation services and the management of adult offenders as outlined in "Transforming Rehabilitation - A strategy for reform" (MoJ, 2013b) and the introduction of the Offender Rehabilitation Act (2015) which has extended probation supervision after release for those who receive short term sentences (Mullen 2015), there is an increasing need to try to identify effective models of delivery to meet the multiple and complex needs faced by many female offenders as identified by Corston (2007). This evaluation aims to consider the extent to which the WSA is meeting the needs of service users and also to enhance the evidence base around 'what works' for women offenders. In terms of the local context for the WSA, Greater Manchester had been part of the Local Justice Reinvestment (LJR) Pilot - a government-funded initiative which sought to explore how reducing demand on the criminal justice system could create savings for the public purse. The pilot involved local partners in six sites across the UK being incentivised to work together more effectively to tackle crime and reduce re-offending. Partners received a financial reward if they managed to reduce adult and youth demand on criminal justice services and specific metrics were used to measure impact. In Greater Manchester these changes involved 'criminal justice system redesign' of processes and 'interventions' delivered at the point of arrest, sentence and release from prison. According to a process evaluation of the pilot, (Wong et al., 2015), there is evidence that LJR in Greater Manchester enhanced partnership working and influenced the development of new commissioning and service delivery models which to some extent acted as the forerunner to new ways of working to reduce crime, including the development of the WSA. Other important local strategic contexts include the introduction of the Community Budget Pilot in 2012 and the implementation of the Transforming Justice programme which developed into Justice and Rehabilitation. The former is one early aspect of an on-going overall programme of Public Service Reform for Greater Manchester involving all local partners, and the latter is the justice element of this programme which aims to create efficiencies by transforming services at the point of arrest, sentence and release, with a particular focus on women, young people and priority and prolific offenders. The intention is to reduce levels of crime and victimisation and invest savings in early intervention and prevention. The WSA fits naturally within this framework and its development can be easily seen through the lens of wider strategic priorities of reducing dependency on public services, Hallam Centre for Community Justice 10

17 and supporting economic growth across Greater Manchester. Alongside the criminal justice element, other pockets of work exist under the overall programme of Public Service Reform, such as the Troubled Families Programme. There may be some overlap in terms of the women accessing these various programmes which need to be considered when looking at potential economic savings within the WSA. Background to the WSA The WSA to working with adult female offenders across Greater Manchester draws on a multi-agency delivery framework to embed gender-responsive approaches for women at three key points in the criminal justice system: Arrest: Police triage to reduce the number of women appearing in courts unnecessarily, where a pre-court disposal could be more effective and less costly. Before a woman is conditionally cautioned, she will be made a mandatory appointment at her local women's centre. Those women not meeting the criteria for a conditional caution will be offered a voluntary appointment. Community Sentence: Provision of consistent 'women-centred' interventions across the whole of the Greater Manchester area to address offending with the aim of increasing sentencer confidence in using community rather than custodial sentences. One aspect of this is: Problem solving court: available in Manchester and Salford magistrates' courts, offers women presenting with four or more identified needs the opportunity for presentence multi-agency sentence planning to take place at the local women's centre. This allows for a Community Order to be proposed and, if imposed, regularly reviewed by the court. Custody Release: provision of resettlement support packages for women being discharged from HMP Styal and other prisons (e.g. Low Newton and Drake Hall) that link them with local women's centres for support. The WSA has been funded by Partnership Funds from Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company (CGM CRC), NHS England and resources from the Financial Incentive Model (FIM), a payment by results reward for a reduction in demand on the CJS. 5 The governance and funding of the WSA is overseen by the Justice and Rehabilitation Executive (JRE). Integral to the approach is a network of women's centres based in the 10 Local Authority areas in Greater Manchester. The centres provide support for women offenders and women 5 Throughout the remainder of the report we have referred to this as the Justice and Rehabilitation Executive or JRE funding. At times, this funding is referred to as the 'PCC money' or 'PSR money' in quotes, as this is how participants perceived this funding. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 11

18 'at risk' of offending and offer wrap around service provision at the three entry points to the CJS outlined below: Point of arrest GMP triage Point of sentence Community Sentences Women s Centre support in all 10 local areas Point of release from custody Prior to the introduction of the WSA, provision for female offenders across Greater Manchester had been patchy, with some areas having already established women's centres being run by third sector or voluntary organisations and funded through a variety of sources including NOMS and charitable grants. The aim of the WSA is to scale up this provision and implement a 'hub' approach across all 10 localities to ensure consistency of approach across the boroughs. The up-scaled model has been commissioned across Greater Manchester since 1 st September with a range of different providers delivering the services across the 9 different women's centres. 7 Aims and objectives of the evaluation The Hallam Centre for Community Justice at Sheffield Hallam University and the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University were commissioned to evaluate the WSA in December The broad aims of this evaluation were to explore the extent to which services have been fully integrated across the whole criminal justice 6 There has been a staggered roll out across the different localities, with the last centre going 'live' in January The following providers have been selected for each borough: Bolton: Eve's Space Salford: Together Women Project Manchester: Women Matta Trafford: Women Matta Oldham: Partners of Prisoners Tameside and Stockport: Joint bid from Tameside and Stockport Women's Centres Rochdale: Petrus Bury: The Attic Project, supported by Petrus Wigan: Joint Bid from Wigan Women's Centre, Addaction, and Leigh Well-Women's Centre. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 12

19 pathway from arrest, to sentence and custody discharge. Learning from the evaluation will also provide a foundation from which the approach can be refined with the potential for wider roll-out across other areas. Within these broad aims, the evaluation had five main objectives: To identify the extent to which the whole system approach for women offenders has been successfully implemented and integrated to enable a holistic support package which meets the complex needs of women offenders. To identify the extent to which the approach has delivered a range of outcomes and impacted on: re-offending, sentencing, resettlement, women's well-being and future prospects. To identify the specific contribution of each component of the approach (triage, community sentences, problem solving court, resettlement package) to the overall impact of the approach. To support a cost benefit analysis of the whole system approach for women offenders. To support the continuous improvement of the whole system approach, including its potential for transferability. As this is an interim report based on early findings from the first year of operation, 8 not all of the aims outlined above will be covered by this report. Work to support a costing exercise and analysis of the impact on re-conviction are still to be conducted and will be included in the final report which is due in November Methodology In order to begin to address the objectives set out above, the following evaluation activities were undertaken between January 2015 and August Project initiation and documentary review - the initial phase of work involved familiarisation with project initiation documents and reviewing the data collection systems that were in place and the suitability of these for meeting the data monitoring requirements for the evaluation. Semi-structured interviews with services users - In total, 19 interviews were conducted with women who have engaged with the women's centres across the nine provider sites. The interviews were one-to-one interviews and were conducted face-to-face at the women's centres. The interviews enabled an understanding of women's experiences of the WSA including factors that facilitated or hindered engagement and progress and their perceptions of impact. 8 Some of the centres did not go 'live' until January 2015, so the findings reflect a shorter period of operation for those centres. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 13

20 Semi-structured interviews with provider staff - 25 interviews were conducted with staff from the nine women's centres. These included both management and operational staff. Interviews were conducted either face-to-face or over the telephone. The focus of the interviews was on how the WSA had been implemented in the different localities, any changes to their ways of working as a result of being part of the WSA, perceptions on the added values of an integrated approach for women offenders and facilitators and barriers to effective implementation and delivery and any potential improvements. Semi-structured interviews with partner agencies - A total of 14 interviews were carried out with agencies that were working closely with the women's centres across the different boroughs. These included police, Cheshire and Greater Manchester Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) staff and the National Probation Service (NPS) staff and voluntary sector organisations. Interviews were conducted via telephone. The aim of these interviews was to explore wider understanding of the WSA and gain a multi-agency perspective across the boroughs and any changes to working practices. Semi-structured interviews with strategic stakeholders - 4 interviews were conducted with individuals involved in the governance of the WSA to understand the rationale and evidence base behind establishing the approach, the role of the WSA in the context of Transforming Rehabilitation reforms; views on sustainability and transferability and how the approach fits within broader criminal justice context. Case studies - projects also provided a number of anonymised case studies to illustrate the complexity of the work they were doing with the women accessing their services. Case studies were selected to reflect diversity in terms of needs presenting with, level and types of engagement with the service, age ranges and referral route e.g. triage, probation (CRC or NPS) and 'through the gate'. Analysis of performance monitoring data - each of the women's centres completes a monitoring spreadsheet designed by the Public Service Reform (PSR) team in collaboration with evaluators. This is known as the 'core monitoring spreadsheet' and has been implemented to collect client data from case management systems in a consistent way across the women's centres. The spreadsheet collects data on the number of women commencing with the projects, needs, engagement levels, outcomes and numbers exiting the projects. The findings in this report are based on the data collected between 1 st September 2014 and 30 th June Qualitative data analysis Analysis of interview data was undertaken using a thematic framework approach (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994) and was an interactive process between members of the evaluation team, involving ongoing discussion of the key themes emerging. This provided a 'checking mechanism' for the interpretation of data, thus adding to the validity of the results. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 14

21 Structure of the report The rest of the report presents the findings from the research. We begin by exploring how the WSA is perceived amongst various stakeholder groups, including levels of understanding and awareness of the aims of the approach and the rationale for the development of this approach to working with women offenders. We then move on to an exploration of the history and future of women's services in Greater Manchester, focussing specifically on the cultures and provision available across the nine women's centres and the potential benefits and challenges of establishing an internal alliance between the women's centres. Within this chapter there is also a focus on the external alliance and relationships with other criminal justice partners. Our focus then turns to referrals to the women's centres in terms of volumes, characteristics and needs of the service users. We then consider the key features to engaging women with complex needs in the support on offer. This is followed by a chapter outlining how this approach to engaging women translates into benefits. Finally we explore expectations for evidencing outcomes and potential challenges moving forward. The report concludes with a number of key reflections and points for future consideration from the first year of operation. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 15

22 2. Perceptions of the WSA In interviews with all research participants, our starting point was to explore the early development of the WSA and to discuss what was meant by or known about it as an overarching initiative. 9 Our aim was to elicit perceptions of the model in order to gain insight into the extent to which the WSA was regarded as a meaningful concept and to understand what that concept meant to different groups of stakeholders. From this we wanted to learn about the rationale for involvement in the WSA and to discover what partners saw as being the benefits of this type of approach for women involved in the criminal justice system. Unsurprisingly, different groups of stakeholders had varying levels of awareness of the WOM (as it was then known) as a label, but it was also apparent, that regardless of familiarity (or not) with the name or acronym, almost all stakeholders who had been involved for any length of time were able to articulate a sense of what the approach involves and where it comes from. Messages about what the WSA is were largely consistent. Stakeholders from all groups were able to articulate a sense of the WSA being an approach to work with women in the criminal justice system that is based on the need for a differential model from the prevailing one which is in the words of one strategic stakeholder interviewee, "designed by men for men". Most participants were clear about the need for a way of working with women that recognises gender difference and offers holistic, women-centred support in a safe community environment. The aim is to enable them to rebuild their lives and begin their journey to desistance from crime. To a large extent, participants were aware of the impact of the Corston Review (Corston, 2007) and were able to describe some of the policy and practice developments that had followed. Some of the service providers at the women's centres had been involved in delivering gender-responsive services for women offenders for many years, and one provider has a long history of campaigning for change for women within the criminal justice system. Most strategic and partner agency research participants also expressed an awareness of the history of policy developments in reducing re-offending by women and diverting low-level offenders out of the criminal justice system altogether. However, in addition to national policy developments in relation to women offenders there were other more local drivers that were discussed in Chapter 1 that had an impact on the WSA coming into being. 9 N.B. The initiative which is now known (and has thus far been referred to) as the whole system approach or the WSA, was originally called the Women Offenders Model (WOM). At the time of the evaluation interviews, the Women Offenders Model name was still being used and this is what it was referred to in interviews. However, for ease of understanding in this report, in the main we refer to the initiative as the whole system approach or WSA. As this was merely a change in name (to reflect the initiative is a general approach rather than a fixed model) the interpretation of interview data is not affected. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 16

23 The local broader strategic context for the development of the WSA outlined in Chapter 1 was articulated clearly by all strategic stakeholders but (not unexpectedly) was not mentioned to any great extent by other groups of research participants. The national strategic context (policy for female offenders and a general drive to reduce public spending) however, appeared to be more widely understood and was outlined or referred to by managers/staff from the women's centres and some partner agency staff. For several participants the WSA was viewed as a natural consequence of a commitment at senior strategic level in Greater Manchester to adopt a gender-responsive approach to reducing reoffending by women, which was in turn driven by national policy set by the Ministry of Justice. In the following sections we explore this a little further and set out findings about perceptions of the WSA and rationale for engagement. Awareness of the WSA Awareness and understanding of the WSA was mixed across the different stakeholder groups involved in the research. For the majority of project staff and managers we spoke to there was little recognition of the acronym 'WOM' (as it was then called), neither was the term 'Women Offender Model' widely used. However, probing by the research team prompted a range of fairly consistent messages from participants about what they saw as the approach they were engaged with in their local areas. These can be summed up as: based on Corston recommendations safe, women-only spaces and outreach support holistic service developed in response to feedback from women services tailored according to needs woman-centred approach The woman is at the heart of everything support accessible at any point in the criminal justice system (from arrest to Community Order to prison and release). Naturally, those organisations that had previously been involved in providing specific services for female offenders, either through national funding streams managed by NOMS or Ministry of Justice, or charitable grants, and latterly via contracts with probation trusts, 10 had a greater understanding of what the WSA was and how it had emerged. Those who had more recently developed services delivered within the WSA were also able to describe where the initiative had come from and what it actually meant. They referred frequently to the Corston Report (Corston, 2007), outlining the ways in which Baroness Corston's review 10 Participants often referred to 'probation', 'probation trusts' or the 'probation service' during interviews rather than the CRC or NPS, so at times these terms are used in the report as this reflects participants accounts and roles that existed prior to the introduction of the CRC and NPS under Transforming Rehabilitation. Hallam Centre for Community Justice 17