Integrated approach helps troubled families

The situation: Corrections has custody of an offender who is a senior gang member. The offender’s family live in a house so dilapidated that his partner must carry a bedside lamp from room to room to get light.

The kitchen is burnt out and she cooks using an extension cord from the garage to an electric frying pan. Windows are broken. Their children, a new-born baby and an eleven-year-old son live with her. The young son is about to be expelled from school for bullying.

This same woman receives regular beatings, and escapes from time to time to the local Women’s Refuge. She and the children live on a benefit.

A tragic, and, to Corrections staff and others working with offenders and troubled families, a familiar story.

But this story, and many like it, can have more successful outcomes thanks to the more integrated ways of working facilitated by the reintegration team at the Northland Region Corrections Facility (NRCF).

Two years ago, a meeting about an offender like the one above illustrated that closer collaboration between multiple organisations was needed. The offender and his family were dealing with the Child, Youth and Family Service, the local school board, Work and Income, Police and Corrections – to name a few.

Corrections staff saw that a collaborative approach could not only improve the situation for this family, but could improve public safety overall, and help the different agencies involved by making information sharing easier.

“It became quite apparent soon after NRCF was established that some Government departments in Northland, at times, shared the same clients as the reintegration team at the prison,” says NRCF Whanau Liaison Worker Bill Martin.

“This particular case helped us to recognise that a lot more could be achieved through a collaborative approach.

“Now, monthly interagency meetings centred around offenders at NRCF are held throughout Northland. These meetings attract representatives from 25 agencies working around Northland. Working together has many benefits for all the groups concerned. It allows everyone to form a whole picture of the offender, provides for consistent and positive monitoring, prevents duplication and playing one agency off against the other and helps identify issues earlier, leading to more comprehensive outcomes than previously,” says Bill.

“Also, because the reintegration team can arrange for outside agencies to visit offenders, this makes for closer working relationships with community agencies such as Women’s Refuge, and helps strengthen our ties with other Government departments in the area,” he says.

And the story above? One agency went in to fix up the house, which meant the eleven-year-old boy had light to get his schoolwork done in the evenings. This improved his situation at school, and with help from his school, he stopped bullying his classmates. Two community agencies are offering support to the offender’s partner – and at least she now has a decent house to live in. Plunket are keeping in touch with her and her baby. The work with the offender as he moves towards rejoining his family post-release continues…