Acting Superintendent of Prisons, Mr Charles L. Forbes said the certified prison officers are likely to soon put into practice what they would have learnt. Photo: VINO

At a simple certification ceremony on Friday October 4, 2013 at Her Majesty's Prison, training Officer from the United Kingdom, Mr. Simon Drysdale of HM Prison-Sheppey Cluster, said he was overly impressed at the level of the officers’ ability to execute the training session. Photo: VINO

Seven (7) Prison Officers and two (2) Officers from the Social Welfare Department have been certified as facilitators for the “Just Think” intervention programme. Photo: VINO

The 'Just Think' Programme was written and designed specifically for the British Overseas Territories (BOT's) and serves to reduce re-offending by inmates. Photo: VINO

The “Just Think” Programme was written and designed specifically for the British Overseas Territories (BOTs) and serves to reduce re-offending by inmates. The programme assesses the thinking patterns of inmates at the time of the offence and their lifestyle in general. Inmates are required to examine how their thinking and ability to problem solve contribute to the offending behaviour.

According to Acting Superintendent of Prisons, Mr Charles L. Forbes, the knowledge and skills learnt by the officers are highly likely to be put into action soon following some other initiatives that are currently being worked out.

At a simple certification ceremony on Friday October 4, 2013 at Her Majesty’s Prison, Training Officer from the United Kingdom Trainer’s and Custodial Manager, Mr Simon Drysdale of HM Prison-Sheppey Cluster, said he was overly impressed at the level of the officers’ ability to execute training session. This, he said, made it much simpler for him to share new strategies of facilitating with the group.

He said ‘Just Think’ is a programme that targets offenders considered impulsive, have challenges dealing with problems, and have an inability to assess their own thinking. “This training was to train facilitators to deliver the Just Think programme directly to offenders in the hope that they will start assessing their thinking and deal with their problems better,” said Mr Drysdale.

The Training Officer said the training will serve to help officers on their day- to-day duties when dealing with offenders and give them some insight as to why inmates might behave a certain way.

The training was funded by Mr Stephen Fradley, the Overseas Territories Prison Coordinator.

According to a Press Release from Her Majesty’s Prison, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture, Dr Marcia Potter, while delivering remarks on behalf of Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron V. Walwyn at the closing ceremony for the Anger Management and Houses of Healing Programmes last month had spoken of the importance of rehabilitation.

She had said, “Many of you would have heard me since taking office speaking tirelessly on my intentions to have rehabilitation become the main focus of Her Majesty’s Prison. This will continue to be my mantra as we must institute such programmes to help the prison population to become ready to reengage in society and to avoid reoffending.”

Just Think is a cognitive-behavioural programme for medium to high risk offenders which assess offenders’ thinking skills and encourages them to apply their new thinking skills to manage their risk factors more effectively.