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Learning Disabilities offending behaviour programmes
Uncontrolled before-after evaluation of Learning Disabilities offending behaviour programmes

Evaluation of clinical outcomes

A new (9 January 2025)  report describes a study of clinical outcomes for participants of the learning disabilities and challenges (LDC) suite of accredited offending behaviour programmes. The LDC suite are HMPPS accredited offending behaviour programmes for adults assessed as having mild impairments in intellectual and adaptive functioning. This study explores the LDC primary programmes ‘Becoming New Me Plus’ (BNM+) and ‘New Me Strengths’ (NMS).

BNM+ is designed for high and very high-risk men with LDC and have been convicted of a general violence, intimate partner violence and/or sexual offences. NMS is for people assessed as medium or above risk of reoffending with any offence conviction. 

The aim of this study was to determine whether LDC suite completers were making positive progress against key programme aims (e.g., problem solving, pro-criminal attitudes) over the duration of participation.

The study

There are four programmes within the suite: Becoming New Me Plus (BNM+), New Me Strengths (NMS), Living as New Me (LNM), and the Heathy Sex Programme (HSP). Our interim outcome evaluation attends to BNM+ and NMS only. This is because LNM and HSP are secondary programmes, i.e., they are intended to be delivered after completion of a primary programme.

BNM+ is for men with LDC assessed as high or very high risk of reoffending, who present with at least one or more strong criminogenic needs across multiple domains and have a general violence, intimate partner violence and/or sexual offending conviction(s).

NMS is designed for people with any offence convictions, who have been assessed as medium or above risk of reoffending, with sufficient levels of criminogenic need addressed by the programme.

The aim of this interim outcome evaluation, undertaken by Rebecca Hubble, was to determine whether BNM+ and NMS participants were making positive progress against programme targets reflected in the Success Wheel Measure (SWM). The SWM, designed by HMPPS, is the core metric for measuring participant progress against programme targets for participants of BNM+ and NMS.

The assessment domains are:

  1. Managing Life’s Problems,
  2. Healthy Thinking,
  3. Positive Relationships,
  4. Healthy Sex (for those with a sexual offence conviction only), and
  5. Sense of Purpose (desistance from crime).

The research also aimed to identify if individual (relating to the person) or programme delivery factors affected changes in SWM scores, and whether these changes varied between assessment domains.

Key results

  • A large increase in total SWM scores from pre-to-post programme participation was found, indicating positive progress against BNM+ and NMS targets.
  • Participants with lower initial insights and skills showed greater improvement, with a large effect size.
  • Participants of BNM+ had a greater degree of pre-to-post programme participation change compared to those that participated in NMS. This effect size was small.
  • Participants with a history of general violence had a smaller pre-to-post programme participation change compared to those without, this effect was very small.
  • No other individual or programme delivery factors were found to predict change in total SWM score.
  • Facilitator ratings had greater pre-to-post change in total SWM score.
  • The impact of individual and programme delivery factors did not differ by rating type.
  • All Success Wheel domains had positive pre-to-post programme participation change in SWM score.
  • Positive change was lower in the Sense of Purpose domain compared to the Managing Life’s Problems domain.
  • The difference in pre-to-post programme participation change in SWM score between BNM+ and NMS participants was found to be smaller in the Sense of Purpose domain than the Managing Life’s Problems and Healthy Thinking domains.

Conclusions

The researcher emphasises that the lack of a control group means changes in SWM scores cannot be directly attributed to Kaizen participation, they could be due to unobserved factors such as natural improvement, or SWM scorer bias. It’s also important to note that the SWM’s validation is limited to sexual offending, which presents an additional limitation. Therefore, results should be viewed as indicative rather than conclusive evidence of the programmes’ effectiveness.

Nevertheless, these interim evaluation results suggest that participation in BNM+ and NMS is associated with positive changes in key programme targets. Participants with reported lower levels of insight and skills appear to benefit more.

 

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here

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