Turks & Caicos Islands
TCI Prison Service Extends Rehabilitation Initiatives with New Course
By TCI Government Press Office
Feb 10, 2014 - 1:58:07 PM

HMP – SO Wilphen Turenne, Officers Marcella Williams, Robert Lewis, Counselor Carline Campbell and Gender Affairs coordinator Carolyn Dickenson.

TURKS & CAICOS - The Ministry of Environment and Home Affairs and Her Majesty’s Prison on Friday 7th February 2014 announced the completion of yet another phase of the Prison Rehabilitation Strategy when members of the staff completed victim empathy training.

Officers of Her Majesty’s Prison along with the Gender Affairs coordinator completed an eight day training course to qualify officers to deliver VEP ‘Victim Empathy Program’ Training to offenders.  The course was delivered by UKHMPS Offending Behaviour Delivery Manager, Mr. Simon Drysdale and ran from 29th January 2014 to the 7th February 2014.

The VEP course is designed to structure Offence analysis together with group work and covers the impact on victims of the offence while placing the offender in the position of empathy and understanding towards the victim’s position and the wider implications of such actions.

The training enables officers to deliver Empathy Courses alongside the current Offending behavior programs Anger Management and the Cognitive skills course, ‘Just Think’.

Prison Superintendent Mr. Ian Sargent commented: “The introduction of this course to run as part of the sentence management planning is a clear sign of the support from the Ministry in developing accredited programs for Offenders. For TCI to gain Staff accreditation in VEP is a major step in the rehabilitation strategy and cannot be underestimated in terms of offender interventions.

Certificates were presented by Permanent Secretary of Environment and Home Affairs, Mrs. Susan Malcolm.

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