Brain injury rehab in prisons – the jury is out
Heather Batey at Reach assesses the situation and what more could and should be done within the criminal justice system
Need a new search?
If you didn't find what you were looking for, try a new search!
Brain injury training rolled out to 63,000 prison staff
Training to enable staff in the prison and criminal justice system better understand brain injury is being rolled out across the country, in what has been hailed as an “important milestone” in decade-long efforts to improve support.
All prisoners to receive brain injury screening
All prisoners in England are to be screened for Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) sustained through domestic abuse from April 2021, it has been confirmed.
The announcement comes after a long-standing campaign and five years of research to highlight the issue of ABI in the prison system. This work has shown that early identification of an injury could help those working within the prison estate to better support men and women to engage with rehabilitation programmes and services designed to help prevent reoffending.
Help for prisoners with ABI during pandemic
The Disabilities Trust has created “Neurorehabilitation Intervention Packs” to address some of the cognitive, behavioural, emotional and psychological symptoms of brain injury. These in-cell intervention strategies can help to reduce the impact of isolation by providing activity and distraction. There are nine individual packs for problems such as anxiety, depression, memory, anger, impulsivity and fatigue. They will be distributed with HMP Cardiff and made available nationally to all prisons and other criminal justice settings. Each document contains a summary of the difficulty faced after brain injury and then interventions that the user can try to implement to reduce this.
Vital link in solving prison problem?
“My head’s like a patchwork quilt under there,” says Wendy, an inmate at HM Prison Drake Hall in Staffordshire. “He beat me bad, bad, bad... I was just knocked out, unconscious, so many times.” Before slipping into the criminal justice system, Wendy suffered domestic violence in a four-year relationship. She is now part of a damning statistic; more than six in 10 female offenders have a history of acquired brain injury (AB)).
Calls for rethink on prison brain injuries
The Criminal Justice Acquired Brain Injury Interest Group (CJABIIG) has [...]
Pioneering linkworker project wins award
The Disabilities Trust acknowledged for its work with prisoners with brain injury
Making brain injury a priority in domestic violence support
NR Times learns how a groundbreaking new Disabilities Trust initiative builds on pioneering efforts from Ohio in the United States
Richardson Care: training the next generation of psychologists
Neuro-psychological support plays a crucial role in successful brain injury rehabilitation and in people with complex learning disabilities
Groundbreaking domestic violence project to launch
The first-of-its-kind study will look at the impact of brain injury from IPV and how survivors can be better supported
