Keeping our people safe: Ara Poutama Aotearoa

Dr Helen FarleyPractice Manager Education and Training – Southern Region

Me: Making the Connection

• $AUD4.4 million Australian government funded

• Taking digital technologies into prison

• Digital access to higher education

• 1700 enrolments across 4 jurisdictions

• 39 sites

Really sorry about …

Ara PoutamaAotearoa by the numbers

9,900 prisoners

6.7% wahine

37% remand

Hōkai Rangi

• Launched August 2019

• Government aiming to transform the justice system

• Hāpaitia te OrangaTangata - Safe and Effective Justice

• To address high rates of imprisonment; the disproportionately high representation of Māori; and our high rates of reoffending

6 outcomes

Partnership and leadership

Humanising and healing

Whānau

Incorporating a Te Ao Māori worldview

Whakapapa

Foundations for participation

Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy 2019 - 2021

• The department has recently finalised and launched its new Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy.

• The policy is a joint commitment between Corrections and union partners.

• Strongly aligned to the five values.

Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy StatementVision

To conduct our business in a way which enables everyone to be healthy, safe and well everyday.

Our principlesOur principles are based upon our organisationalvalues, they drive our Everyone Safe, Every Day strategy and underpin everything we do.

Health and Safety Intro

https://youtu.be/g6LFFTEh6R0

The role of education in health and safety …

• National Office Education Programmes team

• General Manager Industries

• Each region has a Practice Manager Education and Training

• Each prison has a Principal Adviser Rehabilitation and Learning (PARL) and Manager Industries (MI)

• Education tutors and Industry instructors

Education in Hōkai Rangi …

•Humanisingand healing

•Foundations for participation

Dynamic security …

Dynamic security is a concept and a working method by which staff prioritize the creation and maintenance of everyday communication and interaction with prisoners based on professional ethics.

In a hard place, education needs to be a soft place to land

A sad story …

A unique cohort …

• 50% have dyslexia

• Up to 88% have traumatic brain injury

• Up to 60% have significant hearing loss

• Auditory Processing Disorder

• FASD

• Autism Spectrum Disorder

We estimate

• 57% require numeracy and literacy support

• 66% have no formal qualifications compared to 23% general population

• 4.4% have Autism Spectrum Disorder

• 40–50% of youth have ADHD

• 91% have a life time diagnosis of mental health or substance abuse disorder

That results in

• Emotional age not equal to physical age

• Poor impulse control –anger

• Challenges with processing information

• Poor working memory

• Challenges retaining knowledge

• Challenges with fine motor control

• Challenges with understanding instructions

• Challenges reading and writing

Young males

99% will return to the community …

Dynamic security

• Reduction in violence

• Improved cognitive capacity

• Negotiate rather than retaliate

• Longer term thinking and planning

• Learners have a calming influence on others

• More aware of repercussions

What’s in a name?

• Recognition

• Connection

• Belonging

Education as dynamic security …

• Less prisoner on prisoner assaults

• Less prisoner on officer assaults

• Decreased escapes

• Decreased deaths in custody

• Better health of officers and paihere

Education as a window…‘Education has made me more well-behaved … it’s had a calming effect … gave me something else to think about … stopped me acting so impulsively … gave me some long term thoughts …’

Specifically learning

• Develops resilience

• Develops higher cognitive skills

• Improved reasoning and planning

• Improves mental health (reduces depression but also other mental health disorders)

A happier story …

The next frontier …