Scottish Prisons Assessment and Review of Outcomes for Women (SPAROW)

Tender description

The Scottish Government’s (SG) Justice Analytical Services (JAS), on behalf of Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), have commissioned a research project to evaluate the early impact and emerging outcomes of SPS’s new innovative model of Community Custody Units (CCUs). The CCU model for women in custody in Scotland is underpinned by SPS’s new Strategy for Women in Custody 2021-2025. As a result of this Strategy, SPS, together with key stakeholders and partners, has re-designed the custodial arrangements for women to ensure both the physical environment and available services are gender-specific and trauma-informed, meeting the needs of women in their care. An important element of this is creating an environment and conditions which are based on safety, respect and dignity. The overall aim is to evaluate the early impact and emerging outcomes of SPS’s new innovative model of Community Custody Units (CCUs) in Scotland, particularly to help inform: 1. Ongoing improvement of gender-specific and trauma-informed care and support for women in custody (multi-disciplinary approaches that will serve the rehabilitative needs of women in custody); 2. ongoing improvement of gender-specific and trauma-informed care and support for women on release, and on their return to their community (building on each women’s assets, based on their strengths and their needs); 3. continual support and professional development for SPS staff to work in gender-specific and trauma-informed ways; 4. ongoing improvement of partnership working with delivery partners to design and deliver the appropriate range of person-centred services that are gender-specific and trauma-informed; 5. learning on changing relational, behavioural and cultural dynamics through adopting gender-specific and trauma-informed approaches to care for, and support women in custody; 6. policy decisions in the future, specifically on the implications of the CCU model for other population groups in custody; and, 7. the global evidence base on innovative models of custodial care.