For immediate release

Exploring Therapeutic interventions in secure settings

CNWL cemented its position as a leader in the field of Offender Healthcare during a conference at Chelsea Football Club on therapeutic interventions in secure settings.

The daylong event, at Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge, had 11 speakers about a variety of topics around the theme - the full agenda is below.

The service's strap line is "caring, not judging" and there was much on show to illustrate exactly that. The event also cemented its position as a leader in the field of Offender healthcare.

Mike Waddington, Communications Director, who attended said, "It was very impressive and truly inspiring. I saw the genuine ideals of committed and compassionate professionals, working in areas of massive challenge, painstakingly working to relieve pain and distress, and to find the ‘sense' at the heart of all the complexity. A fabulous event!"

One of the presentations (attached) was from psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Dr Pamela Stewart, who runs weekly therapy groups for pregnant women and mothers with babies, in prison. In only ten minutes she set out a very compelling case for the work. Her speech ends with:

"One of the many things I love about working as a psychotherapist in prisons is the opportunity to work with many women who would not come within a million miles of a psychotherapist. After 25 years I feel more strongly than ever that psychotherapy is relevant and useful to a wide variety of people, and definitely has a wider reach than to the often maligned worried well.

"Psychotherapy is a long and slow process, hard to evaluate and difficult at times to champion. Relationships take time to develop and I hope the opportunity for long term psychotherapy in prisons will not be compromised by the closure of HMP Holloway where so much excellent work is carried out by colleagues.

"Perhaps it is fitting to leave the last word to one of my current psychotherapy patients, a 25 year old woman in for attacking with a knife. We have worked together for 9 months and will continue meeting weekly until her release in the Spring 2016.

"One of the positives I can take from the time I have spent in prison is my therapy sessions. Therapy is something I always thought was a complete waste of time, a load of rubbish. I dreaded every Tuesday afternoon. I now feel very differently. Something has clicked into place. I want to go to my sessions. I am beginning to understand myself. I have spent my life in vicious circles. I am now in a very different place and for me therapy has been life changing. I am very thankful for having the opportunity to access the help and support I have received."

More than 100 professionals attended the event and heard talks and took part in workshops that included talking therapies in the prison setting; the value of commissioning psychological interventions for prisoners; understanding the experience of imprisonment to suicide in prisons.

Speakers during the day included Clinical Psychologist Dr Frances MacLennan, Professor Graham Towl from the University of Durham and Professor of Forensic Psychotherapy and Consultant Forensic Psychotherapist Gill McGauley from CNWL and St George's Medical School.

Co-organiser Dr Sarah Allen, Lead Psychologist in CNWL's Offender Care services, said: "This was such a great chance to hear about leading and pioneering work.

"This event underlined some of the exciting things going on in psychology within prison healthcare and particularly within CNWL.

"I particularly enjoyed hearing about the importance of understanding the experience of being in prison in our work and the very great clinical skill our staff hold in working in these environments."

Full agenda

• Aims, challenges and the development of psychology services in offender care - Dr Sarah Allen - Lead Psychologist, CNWL

• The value of commissioning dedicated psychological interventions for prisoners, the Commissioners perspective - Vanessa Fowler, Head of Health and Justice Commissioning, NHS England

• Understanding the experience of imprisonment and the role of the psychologist in prisons - Dr Joel Harvey, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, KCL

• Psychological Services in Prison - Is IAPT apt? - Dr Frances MacLennan, Clinical Psychologist, HMP Holloway

• Case Presentation: An example of complexity and multiple formulations - Dr Rebecca Lockwood

• Cognitive Analytic perspective (Formulations)-Dr Celia Sadie

• Psychoanalytic psychotherapy perspective- Dr Pamela Stewart

• Dialectical behavioural perspective - Dr Rachel Probert

• Suicide in Prisons - Prof Graham Towl - Prof of Forensic Psychology, University of Durham

• Using AMBIT in prison staff groups - Prof Gill McGauley, Professor of Forensic Psychotherapy and Consultant Forensic Psychotherapist, CNWL and St Georges Medical School

• Psychology in the CJS: next steps - Dr Jackie Craissati, Clinical Director of Forensic and Prisons Directorate, Oxleas NHS FT

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5700 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net