Piloting different approaches to personalised offender management in the English criminal justice system

Various approaches to personalisation are well-established in the UK social care sector and are now starting to ‘travel’ to other sectors. In this paper we report findings from an evaluation of a pilot to test elements of personalisation in the management of offenders in probation services within the English criminal justice system. Following a review of evidence from social care, three different approaches to personalised-practice were developed and tested on a small-scale in three separate sites. The evaluation finds that all three approaches were implemented reasonably successfully, but challenges were identified including that personalised approaches are more time-consuming, that staff need support to exercise professional discretion and that balancing greater choice with managing criminogenic risk requires new ways of conceptualising the relationship between case manager and service user. Overall, ‘deeper’ approaches to personalisation, such as co-production, will take time to emerge. This paper makes two important contributions to the debate on personalisation in public services. First, it addresses the question of how transferable the concept of personalisation is from the social care sector to other sectors in the UK, in this case the criminal justice system. Secondly, it outlines a methodology for developing and evaluating personalisation pilots, prior to a wider roll-out.     

Discretionary approaches to social workers’ personalisation of activation services for long-term welfare recipients

Contemporary social policies emphasise labour market inclusion of vulnerable groups through personalisation of activation services. This article investigates social workers’ decision-making when personalising activation measures to suit each client. Data consist of case files for 16 clients participating in a Norwegian activation scheme, and interviews with the clients’ designated social workers. Using Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, the article examines what the social workers consider in their decision-making process and the pivotal factors in their conclusions. Findings show that social workers employ two distinct approaches to personalisation, which have significantly different implications for clients’ pathways towards labour market inclusion. The first approach concentrates on clients’ personal challenges, while the second focuses on feasible short-term employment strategies. The study demonstrates how institutional and political frameworks may lead to social workers’ posing activation requirements inconsistent with clients’ needs and capabilities. It suggests further research into these interrelations to improve social workers’ ability to adapt services to individual clients.     

Personalisation as vision and toolkit. A case study

With the objective to eradicate disability related discrimination and promote choice, control, independence and inclusion for all individuals, the personalisation agenda paved the way for a transformation of social care and disability services in the UK. This paper explores personalisation both as a vision of care and support services and as a toolkit promoted by government policies in order to allow for such vision to translate into practice – the use of direct payments and personal budgets being an example. A qualitative case study analysis has been conducted in the context of care services for disabled young people and by means of in-depth interviews with professionals, parents and the young people themselves. Such analysis reconstructs the implementation of personalisation showing how the toolkit offered by government policies has been used and interpreted differently by the different actors in the field and how this has brought to a wide range of opportunities but also risks. What seems to emerge from the study is that the vision of personalisation risks being hampered by its toolkit and that alternatives might be needed in order to safeguard the potential of personalisation as a vision.     

Themed section: the person-centred turn in welfare policies: bad wine in new bottles or a true social innovation?

This themed section is aimed at evaluating different personalised policies and at drawing a clear map of opportunities and challenges for future implementations. All the essays are based on evaluative researches and on original case studies. They concern different policies: the Australian National Disability Scheme (NDIS) a first serious venture into personalised funding; personalisation in the management of offenders in probation services within the English criminal justice system; social care services for young disabled people attempting to personalise their transition from childhood into adulthood (in Redbridge, UK); health personal plans for disabled people (in Sardinia, Italy). These case studies address the question of how transferable the concept of personalisation is from the social care sector to other and outline different methodologies for developing and evaluating person-centred policies. Last but not least they reflect on a bundle of issues which seem to emerge autonomously from such different case studies. We can sum up their results affirming that personalisation is not an individual consumer-client technology, simply confronted with a single market context and new professionals. It has to be steered within an appropriate context, including new type of professionals, users' led associations and a new governance's architecture. If the public role has to shape freedom and control, helping people to exercise choice in a collectively responsible way and, consequently, to participate in creating public goods, then the person-centred turn will have to confront, at least, some emergent issues, which in turn need specific forms of governance.     

Personalisation,individualism and the politics of disablement

This paper assesses the social policy narrative personalisation, and particularly the implications of the narrative for disability politics. The advantages and disadvantages of positioning specific funding mechanisms within the narrative are explored. It is argued that personalisation is insufficiently aligned with collective aspects of empowerment. More particularly, it disproportionately emphasises improvements in individual autonomy through personalised support, and lacks reference to structural oppression or the need for collective forms of action that bring about structural change. It is further argued that personalisation lack a multi-faceted analysis of disability and disempowerment, and as a result also lacks any vision of a positive alternative society. In assessing personalisation, the positive and negative dimensions of disabled people’s freedom are considered. As a response to the apparent shortcomings of personalisation, the integrated living approach and Centres for Independent Living are considered important elements in an alternative narrative to personalisation.     

Methodological challenges in the implementation and evaluation of social welfare policies

As social reality is quite elusive, even regarding seemingly well-recognized everyday concepts and objects, there are always methodological challenges underlying assessments and evaluations of implementation policies. The present article addresses this area of concern by presenting the results of a rereading of an empirical study of elderly home care services. Our results reveal the emergence of a dissolution of common and professional key concepts and objects in these welfare services to a degree that challenges both the implementation policy and the evaluation of policy. We claim that this has methodological implications for evaluation of implementation policies in general.     

Embarking on self-directed support in Scotland: a focused scoping review of the literature

This article presents findings from a focused scoping review of the published literature on self-directed support (SDS), the term adopted by the Scottish Government to refer to its policy to improve social care outcomes and choices for people using publicly funded services and to distinguish it from personalisation, the term more commonly used in England, and from consumer-directed-care and cash for counselling. The review was undertaken to inform an evaluation of the early adopters of SDS, funded by the Scottish Government 2009–2011, and was updated with later literature. It focused on the evidence base available to inform the Test Sites' (pilot local authorities) efforts to reduce bureaucracy or ‘red tape’ for people choosing their own social care and support; the available evidence about leadership and training to support these changes and about the use of specific transitional funding to ease the process of implementation. The findings of the literature review around these three themes are presented and discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential for such focused literature reviews to inform policy-makers, researchers, and social work practitioners across Europe of the options available when seeking to combine rapid yet rigorous approaches to evidence.     

Understanding the social exclusion and stalled welfare of citizens with learning disabilities

Despite the UK’s recent history of promoting the social inclusion and equality of men and women with learning disabilities they remain a significantly disadvantaged group. Compared with their non‐disabled peers they are more likely to be unemployed, less likely to own their own homes and are at a significantly greater risk of physical and mental ill health. The first part of this paper discusses the welfare rights of citizens with learning disabilities in terms of New Labour’s welfare to work policies. The second part discusses the UK’s mixed welfare economy and its impact upon services for men and women with learning disabilities. The paper concludes by considering whether the social inclusion of men and women with learning disabilities can be promoted solely through policies that emphasise inclusion through work and the personalisation of welfare services.     

Changing Lives: what is really changing for Scottish social work?

In 2004 the then Scottish Executive launched the 21st Century Social Work Review. The review report, Changing Lives, addressed perceived shortcomings in statutory social work services, claiming to offer a fundamental review of the profession. This paper argues that, rather than offering any significantly new principles or policies, the drift of the Changing Lives process was chiefly to refurnish the discourse in which statutory social work is conducted. Specifically it shifts that discourse away from a long-standing Scottish concern to promote social welfare on a community basis towards an individualised conception of well-being. Central to that process is the Review's advocacy of personalisation of services. It is argued therefore that Changing Lives is best understood as an exercise in the ‘problematics of government’—a reassertion of control by reshaping expectations, rather than a substantive reform of services.     

Evaluating systems change in a juvenile justice reform initiative

Evaluating comprehensive, interagency initiatives to reform human services systems presents substantial challenges to traditional research models. Outcomes are observed at the system level rather than the individual level, and the validity of study results may be challenged on a variety of dimensions, particularly small sample sizes and measurement error. We report the results of a cross-site evaluation of the first phase of Reclaiming Futures, a five-year effort to improve services and interventions for justice-involved youth in 10 communities across the United States. We present the evaluation findings and discuss implications for similar research endeavors. The methods used in this study may be useful for other system-level evaluation efforts. A social network analysis analyzes changes in the size, density, and cohesiveness of stakeholder networks. Bivariate models test for associations between Reclaiming Futures implementation and key stakeholder perceptions of effective system change. Multivariate models are used to explore selection effects on item response. In general, we find positive correlations between successful implementation of Reclaiming Futures and indicators of effective and efficient system change.     

Peer mentoring services,opportunities, and outcomes for child welfare families with substance use disorders

Peer recovery support services (PRSS) in child welfare are being provided by peer mentors in sustained recovery from substance use disorders (SUD) to parents with acute SUD. Previous retrospective interviews demonstrate that peer mentors engage parents in family-centered systems of care through relationships and empowerment. However, the specific profile of services provided is unknown. Personnel challenges and opportunities for persons in recovery serving as peer mentors are described in the literature without understanding the frequency of both. As enthusiasm for hiring peer mentors grows, it is important to understand the specific services provided, the risks and opportunities associated with hiring individuals in recovery, and the impact of mentor services on outcomes. This knowledge can assist in developing training, implementation guides, policies, job expectations, and program evaluation strategies. This is a prospective study of 28 family mentors providing PRSS services to 783 families with child maltreatment and parental SUD over 8 years in a family-centered integrated program with SUD treatment providers. We describe mentor services overall, during the early engagement period, in rural and urban settings, and test the association between services and child/parent unification status at case closure; we identify the proportion of peer mentors that experienced employment challenges and career advancement opportunities. Results demonstrate the complexity of service provision overall and in differing contexts. Face to face visits with children were associated with greater likelihood of parent/child unification at case closure and 64.3% of peer mentors experienced career advancement opportunities. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Exclusion by design: intersections of social,digital and data exclusion

ABSTRACT

As smart technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), automation and Internet of Things (IoT) are increasingly embedded into commercial and government services, we are faced with new challenges in digital inclusion to ensure that existing inequalities are not reinforced and new gaps that are created can be addressed. Digital exclusion is often compounded by existing social disadvantage, and new systems run the risk of creating new barriers and harms. Adopting a case study approach, this paper examines the exclusionary practices embedded in the design and implementation of social welfare services in Australia. We examined Centrelink’s automated Online Compliance Intervention system (‘Robodebt’) and the National Disability Insurance Agency’s intelligent avatar interface ‘Nadia’. The two cases show how the introduction of automated systems can reinforce the punitive policies of an existing service regime at the design stage and how innovative AI systems that have the potential to enhance user participation and inclusion can be hindered at implementation so that digital benefits are left unrealised.     

The need to bring an end to the era of eligibility policies for a person-centred,financially sustainable future

Attention within the social care sector in England is moving away from consumerist notions of choice towards good professional practice as the route to personalisation. This demands a new focus on how to make practice that is person-centred the norm. The following sets out that this is unlikely to happen until the use of eligibility policies is ended. The lessons are relevant not only to England, but to other countries who may be looking to the United Kingdom as pioneering in the personalisation agenda.     

Family interventions in early psychosis service delivery: A systematized review

The objective of this study was to explore the development of family intervention in an early psychosis context. The role played by family members and friends in the recovery of individuals with early psychosis is extremely important, and there is a growing body of literature that reflects this. However, how mental health services can best support and utilize family and friends as a core component in recovery from early psychosis is not yet established. The methodology entailed a systematic review of the international literature. Results from the current review highlight the principles of family engagement, its effectiveness to enhance service user outcomes, the need to differentiate early psychosis psycho-education from that provided in enduring illness, and challenges in implementation. The number of studies generally, and the number explicitly articulating and trialling family interventions being used in practice, are limited. This seems to highlight that—although practice guidelines acknowledge the importance of family support—there are challenges in implementation of evidence-based practice principles in this area. Changes in policy and service delivery are recommended for programs and services to better achieve family-sensitive and family-inclusive practice as core business in mental health service delivery.     

Implementing group based parenting programs: A narrative review

Group based preventive parenting programs are efficacious, but seem hard to implement sustainably within regular service. This review aimed to investigate specific challenges related to their implementation. Through a systematic search in several databases, we retrieved 1356 articles for title, abstract, and full-text screening. After screening, we selected 35 articles for quality rating. An established narrative approach allowed us to include 24 studies. We used an ecological approach and a recently suggested implementation construct terminology to report our findings. To date, there are no evaluations of the implementation of group based programs where implementation aspects and effectiveness are compared with other kinds of programs or formats. Hence, important research knowledge is lacking concerning implementation of group based parenting programs. Our finding indicate that certain format specific implementation aspects of group based parenting programs are perceived by practitioners as particularly challenging. For instance, scheduling of group leader workload, provision of additional services (e.g., meals and childcare), and recruitment of participants. Further, practitioners and group leaders influence implementation success and program sustainability as well as parental attitudes and reasons for participation. To highlight the importance of practitioners and parents we suggest adaptations to the ecological model approach. Overall, the theoretical foundation of current implementation research is weak and future implementation research need to be theoretically driven. It is important to fill the existing lack of implementation knowledge because it might be one of the reasons why group based parenting programs have limited impact as preventive interventions on children's mental well-being.     

Two decades of serving children with autism in the People’s Republic of China: achievements and challenges of a state‐run mental health center

This article presents the results of research conducted at the first place where autism was diagnosed in China, the Nanjing Child Mental Health Research Center. The purpose was to examine the development of service provision for children with autism in this state‐run medical institution. Specifically, the specific intervention model for autism, factors influencing the development of this model and how structural and organizational features of the institution impact on the implementation of that model are examined. Results indicate: (1) the importance of family involvement in intervention due to limited services in China; (2) the challenges of providing educational services at a medical institution during the reform period. The implications of these services in contemporary China are significant to consider as an important way to address the rights of individuals with disabilities to have equal opportunities in society, beginning with early education.     

‘It was clear from the start that [SDS] was about a cost cutting agenda.’ Exploring disabled people’s early experiences of the introduction of Self-Directed Support in Scotland

Abstract

The adoption of personalisation represents a global paradigm shift in the organisation of social care. However, such approaches have been criticised for failing to bring about transformative change. The passage of the Self-Directed Support (Scotland) Act (2013) was intended to bring about a significant change in the organisation of social care in Scotland, giving increased choice and control to new user groups. The implementation of the policy at a time of significant financial constraint for local government has cast doubt on this potential. This paper presents findings reflecting disabled peoples’ lived experience of this change during the early stages of implementation. Drawing on one-to-one qualitative interviews with disabled people living across the central belt of Scotland, this early snapshot suggests that the policy had not significantly increased choice and control for service users, and that austerity was leading to an erosion of gains made by existing Direct Payments users.     

Adult protection and ‘intimate citizenship’ for people with learning difficulties: empowering and protecting in light of the No Secrets review

The government are consulting on the introduction of legislation to give professionals powers to enter the homes of ‘vulnerable adults’ where abuse is suspected and remove the ‘victim’ without their consent . This article considers the consequences of such legislation for the ‘intimate citizenship’ of people with learning difficulties who have capacity to consent to sexual relationships. Proposals of the consultation are considered in terms of their practical relevance, finding that changes can be made with better guidance, resources, policy implementation and a sound evidence base for adult protection. A case is made that proposals contravene human rights, mental capacity laws and the ethos of personalisation, increasing the focus on risk in practice. An ecological model of vulnerability is supported, which offers an approach that can prevent sexual abuse through empowerment without the need for new legislation.     

The concept of Children in Need: The answer or the problem for family support?

This paper attempts to describe and assess the impact of the 1989 Children Act on the family support aspects of statutory child care social work. Having outlined some of the ideological challenges to family support work, it goes on to trace the main themes in the relevant professional and research literature. The family support clauses of the 1989 Children Act are outlined followed by a brief account of the dominant concerns which preceded their implementation. The findings of a recently completed study of the implementation of the Children in Need clauses of the Act, are described and brief conclusions drawn about the way in which the more negative outcomes might have been minimised, by counter-balancing the requirement for social workers to prioritise access to services, by a more robust dissemination of research findings about family support.