Category: Empowerment Star

Reviewing and updating the Empowerment Star

Posted on by Emily Ellis

We’ve been continuing with our review of the Empowerment Star and have had some fantastic opportunities to learn and add to the wealth of research that is being conducted by the team to update this Star. 

We were really excited to spend time with the Bath-based charity VOICES, a charity founded by women with lived experience, dedicated to providing recovery support and advocacy for people affected by domestic abuse.  

Our Product Lead, Harriet Wills, spoke with VOICES’ lived experience group and held in-depth discussions on the work so far to update the Empowerment Star. A huge thank you to all at VOICES for sharing their invaluable insights and experience.  

Our Research Analyst, Dr Anna Good, alongside Harriet, have also been conducting an Equality Impact Assessment to help ensure the review makes the Star as inclusive as possible. To feed into this and help our ongoing learning across the Triangle team were delighted to attend two incredibly informative training sessions with charities Galop and Safer Places.  

Galop is an LGBT+ anti-abuse charity who work with and for LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence. We spent time learning more about the unique experiences of LGBT+ victims and survivors of abuse and the intersectional challenges they may face.  Safer Places delivers specialist support services to adults and children who have experienced domestic abuse and shared their knowledge of culturally diverse communities’ experiences of domestic abuse and the additional barriers they face to access support services.  

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Galop and Safer Places for delivering such impactful and engaging training.  

We were excited to share our progress with the Empowerment Star reference group and are now looking ahead to consolidating our research and finalising the Empowerment Star review. We will be launching the new and updated Star in the new year. 

Want to get updates on the Empowerment Star straight to your inbox? You can email us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk or sign up for our mailing list here

A brief update on the continuing review of the Empowerment Star.

Share your feedback on the Empowerment Star

Posted on by Donna

Do you work with the Empowerment Star? We’re keen to hear your experience and insights to help us review this Star and improve it for everyone. Take the survey or join our focus groups to share your valuable feedback.

 

The Empowerment Star is our Outcomes Star for women who have experienced or been the victims of domestic violence. It is designed to be used within women’s refuges or outreach and social services and focuses on areas that are important in helping women who have experienced abuse at home to embark on a new life. We produced it in 2011 with collaboration from Eaves Housing and funding from London Councils.

Why we’re reviewing this Star

An important part of our work is keeping Stars up-to-date, easy to use and as impactful and efficient as possible.

Since the Empowerment Star was launched in 2011, there have been many changes in the sector. We have learned a lot more about the need to be trauma-informed, foster inclusivity and better meet the unique needs of practitioners and the women they support. So it’s important that we review the Empowerment Star in light of this and ensure it is the best it can be.

Creating and reviewing our Stars is a collaborative effort – we couldn’t do it without the input and expertise of clients, organisations, and practitioners who use the Star. With your experiences, ideas and feedback, we can make it as useful as possible for you and the people you support.

Share your feedback

If you are a practitioner or manager who uses the Empowerment Star and are willing to help us improve it, simply fill in this short survey and tell us what you think.

We’re also inviting you to join one of our focus groups on 22nd and 23rd November 2023 so we can hear feedback directly. Simply sign up for the date that suits you. The focus groups are on UK time, but if you use the Empowerment Star outside of the UK and would like to join, please tell us about yourself here.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you and improving this valuable tool together. If you’d like to find out more or want to email your feedback, contact us or email sara@triangleconsulting.co.uk directly.

Scottish Association for the Study of Offending (SASO) Annual Conference 2022

Posted on by Donna
Jim Boreland

I’m Jim Borland, the Implementation Lead for Triangle in Scotland. My role is to support a range of different organisations across the country to use the Outcomes Star in a way that best helps them to support their various clients.

I am also an ex-Police Officer, and following my retirement from the force, I worked for several years in a national charity. Much of the work there was focused on rehabilitating offenders and supporting people within or on the cusp of the Criminal Justice system. As such, I have a genuine interest in things relating to the Criminal Justice system and was keen to attend the Scottish Association for the Study of Offending (SASO) conference on November 11th 2022, which focussed on access to j, in particular, the obstacles to obtaining justice from both sides of the Criminal Justice system in Scotland, for victim and perpetrator alike.  

I looked forward to hearing about the current challenges and learning more about the range of successful recent initiatives and plans to support everyone within society to get access to justice when they need it.

As a result of the recent pandemic, this was the first face-to-face conference in recent years, bringing together a variety of interested individuals and front-line organisations working in the justice arena. The keynote speakers were all high-ranking professionals within their disciplines discussing their personal experiences of the justice system in Scotland. The conference also allowed them to propose some ‘blue sky’ ideas to help ensure access to justice will be available to everyone who needs it in the coming years.

The conference highlighted and celebrated the invaluable work undertaken by front-line services and staff. It was also an excellent opportunity for delegates to connect, network, learn from each other, and share experiences.

Whilst some initial design work had already commenced, Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar spoke about the various technological advancements developed due to the pandemic, including the use of ‘virtual’ courtrooms and evidence provided remotely via digital platforms. She also highlighted several new procedural improvements, including ‘electronic’ warrants and fast-tracking domestic abuse cases, designed to streamline the sometimes lengthy legal processes. These developments are intended to ensure that the justice system is demonstrably ‘fair’ to all and provide appropriate and timely access to justice for both an accused person and the victims of crime.

The next speaker was Andrea Coomer, the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Throughout a very passionate presentation, she highlighted the apparent lack of diversity in the Judiciary system, particularly in England and Wales, and consequently, the noticeable lack of trust by a majority of the general public, particularly with young people and people from ethnic minorities. She provided several examples of young people being unable to access justice. She posed questions about the suitability of court proceedings when the reality was that the person might be suffering from mental health issues, be a victim of abuse themselves or be disadvantaged in accessing legal representation due to their personal circumstances. Her plea was that ‘legacy’ legal systems need to change as we move towards the future.

The next speaker was Andrea Coomer, the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Throughout a very passionate presentation, she highlighted the apparent lack of diversity in the Judiciary system, particularly in England and Wales, and consequently, the noticeable lack of trust by a majority of the general public, particularly with young people and people from ethnic minorities. She provided several examples of young people being unable to access justice. She posed questions about the suitability of court proceedings when the reality was that the person might be suffering from mental health issues, be a victim of abuse themselves or be disadvantaged in accessing legal representation due to their personal circumstances. Her plea was that ‘legacy’ legal systems need to change as we move towards the future.

The last keynote speaker, Ronaldo Renucci KC, the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, spoke at length about the practical issues faced by defence solicitors, including a declining number of solicitors, a lack of new defence solicitors coming into the field, the capping of legal aid, the increasing amount of work for existing defence solicitors, the rising number of new clients and increased case preparation requirements. These issues are even more significant for cases involving sex crimes, which are very distressing for all persons involved (prosecution and defence alike). He emphasised the right for everyone to have the ability to access justice, and that included obtaining appropriate legal representation. However, this is becoming difficult due to the limiting factors raised, and he put forward several ideas about improving the current situation.

The afternoon session was an interactive session where groups of delegates reviewed scenario’s where access to justice was complicated due to a vast range of legal and organisational processes. Throughout these scenario discussions, it was highlighted that there was still much work to be done to ensure access to justice reaches everyone who needs it – accused persons, victims, and the public in general.

Whilst the use of the Outcomes Star might not at first glance appear to directly link to getting ‘access to justice’, it is relevant when organisations support individuals throughout their journey within the Criminal Justice system.

Clearly, everyone has different support needs from the system, and using the Justice Star could assist with that.

The Justice Star recognises that each person requires an individually tailored plan to support them throughout their journey towards and through the Criminal Justice system. This could include after being charged, post-conviction, in prison and re-entering the community upon leaving prison. These tailored plans would involve having effective supportive networks, supportive relationships and a sense of community which is vital for well-being but also for diverting the individual away from previous criminal activity and out of the Justice system itself.

In addition to the Justice Star, The Empowerment Star assists survivors of domestic abuse in getting their life back on track and dealing with the trauma of what’s happened to them.

The person-centred approach used by the Outcomes Star was very much at the heart of the Panel discussions, where representatives from the Scottish Human Rights Commission, Victim Support Scotland, Scottish Prison Service and Local Authority Social Work, highlighted the need for better action planning and more creative solutions, to achieve more sustainable results irrespective of the person being the offender or victim.

At Triangle, we often discuss the importance of enabling and empowering people by being person-centred, strengths-based and using trauma-informed language. However, as highlighted by most of the speakers, several external factors linked to the Criminal Justice system will directly impact what is achievable by a person or supporting organisation. The most obvious was available finance. It was commented upon frequently that a lack of funding directly affected the quality of service and support that could be provided, significantly impacting the levels of access to justice a person could achieve. In some cases, it was more of a ‘post-code lottery’ as to whether necessary support to access and achieve justice was available.

It was evident, however, that additional money alone won’t fix the problems. The culture of the current Criminal Justice system, being based on traditional processes, procedures and even standards of dress, doesn’t make it user-friendly or even recognisable to people accessing it. It’s like a strange new world they don’t recognise or understand. Therefore, whilst there is a degree of familiarity with using traditional ways, there is also a need to move forward with the times, and several presentations indeed demonstrated a move in that direction.

The conference provided several examples of innovative service delivery developed to meet the demands of a changing society, mainly due to the recent pandemic. These new ways of working will continue to put the individual at the centre of any new processes. As the Outcomes Star has been demonstrated to be an effective tool in determining needs, highlighting gaps in service provision, and providing data analysis to support change, I hope Triangle may be involved in future discussions around this change process.

Overall, plenty for me to ponder relative to the Criminal Justice system in Scotland. I look forward to continuing some of these discussions with existing or new Scottish clients in the future.

Further information

If you would like further information about the Justice Star or the Empowerment Star, please email us at info@triangleconsulting.co.uk

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More about our Stars for the Criminal Justice Sector