Rank the Problems/Issues

This topic covers how to rank the problems/issues, including the:

This stage should not take more than 20 minutes to complete.

Focus on the following during this stage:

communication skills
building empathy
interviewing and rapport building
pro-social modelling, especially responding favourably to comments that signify rejection of anti-social thinking and attitudes, and
consequential thinking, i.e. enabling the offender to think through the pros and cons of changing their behaviour (links to cost benefit analysis).

Follow these steps to rank the offender???s problems and issues.

Step	Action
1	Introduce this stage of the process to the offender. Explain that the work will focus on them ranking their identified problems and issues in order of priority to decide which to work on first.
2	Invite the offender to identify which problems they would like to deal with first and why.
3	If the offender has difficulty identifying priority areas, the probation officer should offer their point of view. Consider the: severity of the offending risk of re-offending, and offender???s sentence conditions.
4	If necessary, explore the consequences of addressing or not addressing the problem areas. Use the cost benefit analysis tool.
5	Agree on the order of priorities with the offender, and check that the offender has understood why that order has been chosen. If applicable, advise that the priorities will be in the sentence plan.
6	If useful, ask the offender to take a copy of the cost benefit analysis tool exercise home to think about, discuss with significant others, and complete.
7	Enter the list of priorities in IOMS casenotes.

Check that the offender is:

able to express their priorities and the reasons why those priorities have been chosen
able to identify the positive and negative consequences of their offending behaviour
taking responsibility for their behaviours, issues, problems, and
interested in the discussion.

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