The Prison Service has put another programme in place to help prison officers with rehabilitation of offenders prior to their release back into society.
The programme entitled ‘Just Think’ was developed by rehabilitation tutors from the United Kingdom. It is a cognitive based therapy that helps focus the offender on improving his or her thinking skills.
The May 3rd to 13th programme ended with presentation of certificates to participating prison officers from the TCI and their counterparts from the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla who also took part in the training.
“Just Think” is a cognitive based program which attempts to improve offenders thought processes and thinking skills, which is the critical to successful rehabilitation. The completion of this program and the accreditation of the students that attended will have a significant impact on the TCI Governments rehabilitation agenda as it will offer support to sentence management within the prison and allow us to demonstrate effective interventions for those in our care ” stated Ms. Denise Saunders, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Safety before awarding officers with their certificate of competence in delivering “Just Think” to prisoners.
Prison Superintendent, Ian Sargent in addressing the presentation ceremony noted that:
“This course has covered the thinking and behaviour aspect of offender rehabilitation. The trained staff will deliver thinking skills training to prisoners. The core principle is to show prisoners how poor thinking skills can lead to poor decision making and consequences. It then develops the theme to then show prisoners how to develop good thinking skills. Further to this it also empowers our staff to learn and develop professional and relative skills within a custodial setting.”
Lead UK Rehabilitation Tutor, Stephen Bunce congratulated the prison officers on making the experience so rewarding, and said he was impressed with the skills they had developed over the eight day period.
Prison Officers who participated were:
From TCI Prison –
Meshelle Jennings /Senior Officer
Robert Lewis/Prison Officer
Michael Panton/Prison Officer
Lawanda Jennings/ Basic Grade Officer
From BVI –
Paula Watkins/ Prison Officer
Damian Johnson/Prison Officer
From Anguilla –
Shariffa Wallace / Head of Rehabilitation
Tashanta Brooks / Probation Service
UK Course Tutors were Mr. Stephen Bunce – HMPS Intervention Manager and Mr. Simon Drysdale – HMPS National Behavioral Instructor/ Compliance Assessor.
The course began on the 3rd of May with an awareness session to key stakeholders. This demonstrated to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Safety, Governors Office, Parole Board and Visiting Committees the key fundamentals of the Just Think Program.
