Essex CRC perpetrator training

Published on : 5/30/19
  • Sodexo Justice is delivering training to social workers, police officers and other professionals to help to upskill them to work with domestic abuse perpetrators and their families.

    Respected as a trusted partner and authority on domestic abuse issues, Sodexo’s team at Essex CRC was commissioned to deliver a package of training to staff in agencies working with domestic abuse perpetrators who were not necessarily in the criminal justice system.

    This has been made possible because of Essex CRC’s experience and expertise in the arena of domestic abuse and its investment into the professional development of its partners in the community.

    The CRC was commissioned to designed the three-day package in response to a county-wide workforce audit by the Southend, Essex and Thurrock Domestic Abuse Board, which identified that social workers had a lack of confidence in working with families with a domestic abuse perpetrator. By their nature, perpetrators can be very controlling and manipulative, and the training aims to tackle these issues and allow professionals to work with more confidence and effectiveness.

    The training is designed to give practitioners skills in motivational interviewing in order to support meaningful engagement, risk assessment and management. It also considers and challenges personal and professional bias in working with perpetrators. Practical exercises are used to elicit information to make informed risk assessment and take steps to reduce risk by creating cognitive dissonance.

    Use of reflective practice and cases studies identify approaches to working with perpetrators and improve practitioner confidence. 

    The training runs over three days; two consecutive days and then a reflective follow-up day a week later. The course, which is delivered by a team of specialist CRC staff, has received consistently excellent feedback from the staff of agencies that have attended and the domestic abuse experts that commissioned it.

    Confidence in this work is such that following one event being commissioned by the Southend, Essex and Thurrock Domestic Abuse Board, Essex Children’s Social Care has commissioned a further three events and have requested further follow-up training for participants and their managers.  

    Other local authorities are also now interested, and the success of the project is serving to both cement Essex CRC’s reputation as the lead deliverer of domestic perpetrator work, and enriching the partnership approach to working with domestic abuse for service users, their families and the wider community. 

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