International Award for NZ Probation – well done

Jane von Dadelszen collects award

I picked up this story in the latest Corrections News. You will see our connection with it at the end.

Late last year New Zealand Corrections received the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) Community Corrections Award for their Community Probation Change Programme.

Chief Probation Officer Astrid Kalders, whose name appears on the award, was quick to give credit to everyone involved. “The names of all frontline staff and managers should be engraved on this award. We set out to transform practice, and after three years of really hard work we did it. We’ve transformed ourselves; we’re now in an excellent place to transform offenders,” she says.

The Probation Change Programme re-designed frontline practice so staff would be more effective with offenders. Central to the re-design was the introduction of an ‘Integrated Practice Framework’ – a system that guides staff in doing the right thing, at the right time, with the right offender, while meeting all mandatory standards.

The programme changed the way probation officers work – from treating all offenders on the same sentence in the same way – to managing each offender according to the risks and challenges posed by that individual. Since implementing the change programme, probation now meets its mandatory standards 98 percent of the time, a significant – and now internationally recognised – achievement.

HMA as part of a consortium with Able Training, was intensively involved in the design and delivery of the training aspect of the change programme over the three year period. This work ranged across the whole gambit of sentences including: parole, home detention, intensive supervision, supervision, community work, and community detention. We were involved in delivering to over 1500 probation staff throughout the period.