Training staff to work with learning disabled sex offenders

Councils responsible for learning disabled adults who have offended sexually have increasingly been turning to charity Affinity Trust to support them in recent years. The learning disability charity specialises in supporting adults with complex needs and challenging behaviour to return from out-of-area placements to live safely in their communities.

However, when the trust started being commissioned to do this work, chief executive Leo Sowerby realised that the support staff working with this particular client group needed specialist training above and beyond what they already received.

“All our staff are trained in risk assessment but when you move into an area of supporting people who might have committed a sexual offence there is a different dimension, for example, public safety and the involvement of other agencies,” he says.

Affinity Trust called in Respond, a charity that supports people with learning disabilities who have been affected by trauma and abuse, to provide targeted training to specific staff supporting those whose behaviour is challenging or who have committed a sexual offence. So far, 77 have gone through the training process.

Behaviour has roots in abuse

For support workers to understand the people they work with they need to be aware that “extreme challenging behaviour often has its roots in abuse or neglectful early childhood”, says Respond’s chief executive, Noelle Blackman.

“We want staff to understand the human part of this person. Yes, their behaviour is often risky and dangerous, but there is also a victim and that part of the person needs attention too.”

To avoid a cycle of cruelty like that seen at Winterbourne View, staff need to be invested in, she says.

Risks of fostering bullying environment

“If you don’t train them and supervise them to consider and reflect on their work, then a mindlessness can set in and it becomes a ripe environment for a bullying person to enter and take control. Organisations need to have an eye on what creates a healthy environment, because then it would be noticeable if something like Winterbourne View was happening.”

The training from Respond takes two days and the main objectives are for support workers to be able to identify and understand the key features of sex offending and best practice in assessment and management of risk; show a knowledge of individual and group psychodynamic approaches to working with learning disabled sex offenders; and understand legislation in the field of learning disability and sexual abuse.

Case studies make it practical and accessible, says Blackman; staff are encouraged to bring their own examples of challenging scenarios so these can be explored and worked through.

The main outcome from this training is “seeing a real change in the ways [staff] understand the difficult behaviours they are supporting people with”, says Blackman. “Because they have a new psychological understanding of that they can be more sensitive in their responses.”

Training improves community support

Sowerby agrees: “This training improves our ability to support someone to live and remain in the community because staff have a greater understanding of the background that might have led to this situation and of the legislation, for example if they have a community treatment order.

“The underpinning point is our belief that there isn’t a need for places like Winterbourne View. People can be successfully supported in the community if safeguards are in place and key to that is having the right staff with the right training.”