Derry mental health professor says a trauma informed approach is key to probation services

Professor Siobhan O’Neill, Northern Ireland Mental Health Champion, met with probation staff and service users in the north west to discuss mental health, emotional wellbeing and a trauma informed approach to service delivery. The Probation Board of Northern Ireland (PBNI) has established a number of service users forums across Northern Ireland where service users come together and use their lived experience to assist probation to develop its services and contribute to safer communities.

Gillian Montgomery, PBNI Director of Operations: “I am really pleased that Professor O’Neill has had the opportunity to meet with our service user forum in Derry City. A key element of enhancing and improving our services is ensuring that we listen to the voices of service users that means both people on probation and those who have been victims of crime who use our victim information service. Today Siobhan is meeting with a group of female service users who will tell their own stories about how they entered the justice system and the work they are doing to change their lives.

“Many service users are telling us that they are experiencing real difficulty with their emotional wellbeing and mental health. We know many of them have experienced trauma that includes childhood neglect and abuse, having been a victim of domestic abuse or violence. Likewise, our staff are telling us that the complexity of people they are working with is increasing. In simple terms, there are more people experiencing mental health challenges. Over 72% of people entering probation have a problem in relation to emotional wellbeing and half of the people have a mental health problem.

“We know that in order to prevent reoffending we need to tackle the root causes of offending behaviour and that means understanding why someone may have offended in the first place and trying to tackle those issues. On many occasions the root cause is linked to poor mental health.

“Service user involvement and getting the first-hand experiences of service users is hugely beneficial for us and brings unique insights. We get to hear what works, and importantly what doesn’t work in terms of supporting someone on their desistance and rehabilitative journey.”

Professor Siobhan O’Neill said: “We know that the majority of those who enter probation have significant trauma and many have mental health difficulties. Today’s meeting with Probation Service users was incredibly powerful, I gained an understanding of the challenges faced by service users and learned about the invaluable work of the Probation Service to help people turn their lives around. Trauma informed practice recognises the impact of trauma, and the link with mental illness, and contact with the Justice system. We need to intervene at an early stage to help those with difficulties, as well as providing treatments for trauma related mental health difficulties within services, to support better outcomes.”

Gillian continued: “We believe that the effectiveness of Probation in addressing the issues of mental health and trauma presented by service users and changing lives for safer communities will be enhanced through the involvement of service users in the planning, developing and evaluating of services delivered.”