The Sex Offender Toolkit
Designed for staff working on a one to one or group setting with sex offenders. One of the most common problems found in working with this wide & extremely difficult client group is how quickly they become habituated to the structure & content of regular group work, soon learning how much they can disclose & manipulate. This can lead to a situation where it becomes very difficult for staff to realistically judge how much of the work being undertaken is actually being internalised. At the same time, sex offenders are highly skilled in maintaining their own private worlds, often denying that their offences are harmful or violent. They can be so adept at suppressing most emotional states that they rarely understand how their sexual assaults are acts of profound anger. This resistance contributes to maintaining a backlog of old hurts, insults & injuries that remain part of the “private food for malignant thought”.
The Sex Offender Toolkit is an intensive training course for those staff involved in sex offender treatment programmes, using drama & arts based techniques that sit well within the current standard cognitive behavioural approaches used in most programmes. Training covers:
- Breaking through denial
- Accessing & processing emotions
- Patterns of offending
- Victim empathy skills
- Relapse prevention training & assessment
Techniques taught on the course include:
- Drama, mask & visual arts techniques
- Warm ups
- Roleplay techniques
- Using art work & props
- Adapting existing group work exercises
“Very well worth the time, the cost & the commitment. A totally new experience for me resulting in an increase in my confidence”
Participant NSPCC Colchester
“Inspirational”
Senior Social Worker, Broadmoor Special Hospital
