Health services

Tender description

Prisons and probation staff work with difficult, demanding and challenging offenders both within custody (prison and probation staff) and in the community (probation staff only). Where work is of a more intensive nature and may involve dealing with complex cases, potentially including unpleasant material (which may cause distress to those reviewing and discussing it,) regular support needs to be available to these staff to ensure that this work does not impact on their personal life or emotional well-being. This support will take the form of structured professional support sessions which aim to both reduce the likelihood that staff will experience adverse effects as a result of working on programmes with offenders or high risk cases, and to increase the likelihood of the experience of positive effects as a result of this work. Prisons offer a variety of rehabilitative, accredited programmes for offenders, and these vary in intensity and length. Probation staff deliver programmes to those convicted of sexual offending. Staff across the system work with individuals who have committed a range of offences, including sexual and violent offending. Many individuals will have complex presentations, due to drug and alcohol use, the presence of personality disorders and also mental health issues. As such, the work is complex and challenging. The customer has a duty of care to ensure that staff delivering these programmes, working with high risk cases or exposed to difficult material receive support for any issue arising directly as a result of their work, when and where this is needed.