Corrections Chief Executive Barry Matthews and General Manager Community Probation
& Psychological Services Katrina Casey opening the North Shore Service Centre.
The Community Probation & Psychological Services’ (CPPS) North Shore Service Centre was opened on 4 July by Chief Executive Barry Matthews and General Manager CPPS Katrina Casey.
Waitemata Area Manager Alastair Riach says the new centre is an important step in integrating services for offenders.
“Previously, if an offender was sentenced to both community work and supervision they had to report to two different centres to fulfil their sentence obligations. Now they have just one place to come to.”
The new service centre took over six years to build and accommodates around 40 staff, including programme facilitators, who run programmes for groups of offenders to address their offending; a sentence management group who manage offenders on parole, supervision and extended supervision; and a community work team who support and supervise offenders on community work sentences. A home detention team is also based at the new centre.
The new Community Probation and Psychological
The facility includes three programme rooms and a whanau room which will allow an offender’s whole family to be involved in their sentence planning.
Alastair says staff appreciate working in such a modern facility, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t alter the challenging nature of their work.
“Our key responsibilities are to protect the public and reduce reoffending and this is what drives every one of our daily decisions. Our clients are some of the most difficult members of society. They can be unpredictable and test the patience and resolve of even the most experienced staff.”
In the last six months, 11 new staff have been appointed to the service centre to help meet the demand of the new sentences that will be created by the Effective Interventions package, which is soon to be passed.
CPPS now has 140 sites throughout New Zealand.
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ISSN 1178-8453