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Our Justice sector clients include;
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the New Zealand Department of Corrections;
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New Zealand & Australian Forensic Mental Health Services;
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Community based not-for-profit emplyers who focus on
sexual or violent offending.
Selected Employer Profile:
Department of Corrections
Based on consistent positive feedback from
placed candidates we confidently recommend the New Zealand
Department of Corrections as an employer. They offer high levels of pre and
post arrival support to those new to the country and the justice field.
Corrections were amongst the first New
Zealand employers to understand the benefits of offshore recruitment and we
have worked closely with them to develop creative and supportive recruitment
processes for overseas applicants.
Overview
The
explicit goal of the Department of Corrections is reducing re-offending and
it has set about an ambitious program of
refining its structure and operation in line with internationally
established and empirically derived principles of best practice. A pivotal feature
has been an emphasis on improving the quality of its
services through Integrated
Offender Management. This has
resulted in significant enhancements in integration between the various
business units of Prison, Community Probation & Psychological Services. In
place is a seamless process in the way offenders are
assessed, treated, and re-integrated back
into the community. Psychologists
and related professionals play significant roles in various parts of this
process and with ongoing service development there continues to be an
excellent range of employment opportunities.
The Psychological Service
The
Department of Corrections maintains a well established Psychological
Service which is grouped with Probation Services to form the
Community Probation and Psychological Services (CPPS).
The Director
and Assistant Director are both
psychologist and located within Corrections' Wellington National Office.
Senior Research officers are also attached to this office. In the field
there are 15
sites, each of which is managed by a Principal Psychologist and employ
psychologists and allied professionals.
Ten of the Psychological Service offices are responsible
for the provision of services to offenders both in prison and
serving community-based sentences managed by the Probation Service. Psychologists provide; individual assessment and
treatment; assist prison and probation staff with sentence management;
provide assessment reports and
expert testimony to the National Parole Board and
Courts. They also provide consultation,
training and supervision of Correctional staff. These Psychological Service offices are integrated
into regional structures alongside the Community Probation Services to
help facilitate seamless integration in sentence management.
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The
Psychological Service is also responsible for the operation of five prison
based specialist treatment units (STUs) and a sixth will open in 2009.
These units provide comprehensive assessment and group treatment to
offenders who have been assessed at high risk for recidivism. Two STUs
focus on men who
sexually offend against children, one on violence and the other two (and
soon to be a third) for inmates with mixed offending profiles including
violence. These units are well resourced, have a high
staff to client ratio, deliver intensive group-based Cognitive Behavioural programmes
and also serve as research facilities to further enhance treatment and assessment
practices.
A third area of intervention work
involves the delivery of criminogenic (Offending behaviour) programmes. These are suites of
cognitive behavioural based programmes for offenders assessed at medium
risk of re-offending. They are delivered by programme facilitators to
groups and/or individuals in either community or general prison
settings. The programmes aim to reduce the level and/or seriousness of
reoffending by assisting participants to identify and change the
attitudes and beliefs that maintain their offending behaviour.
Some programmes focus on motivating offenders to address their
offending.
The Psychological
Service has a strong research role, reflecting the scientist-practitioner
model of clinical practice. In recent years, the service has conducted
significant treatment evaluations of its work which have demonstrated its
effectiveness in reducing re-offending. Additionally, the results of the service’s
research into the areas of risk assessment and the assessment of offending
behaviour has strongly influenced procedures on a Department wide
basis.
Advantages of Working for
the Psychological Service
Offered
is attractive remuneration packages, well resourced employment conditions, superior IT
facilities, significant professional development provision,
excellent career development opportunities and in some cases a
contribution towards
relocation expenses.
What
to expect:
The
work of Psychological Service psychologists is highly valued throughout the
Department, the National Parole Board and the Courts.
The
service itself has a reputation for the high calibre of its staff who are
encouraged to develop professionally by the provision of quality
clinical supervision, attendance at training courses and conferences and
support to attain advanced educational qualifications.
Progression
within the service is by a competency based remuneration system, which
recognizes abilities.
Departmental
psychologists are part of an energetic, well-managed and progressive
Government Department.
All
offices have strong links with their local university, where staff are
often called on to provide visiting lectures. Training opportunities
are made available to trainee psychologists from both New Zealand and also
some Australian universities.
Departmental
psychologists often have the opportunity to develop and pursue relevant programmes
of research.
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Employment
Opportunities
Psychologists:
for this role psychologists travel to both prison
and community probation centres to provide; individual assessment and
treatment of offenders; specialist recidivism risk
assessment and sentence management advice to parole boards and courts; and consultation and training to Corrections staff.
Psychologists
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these prison
based roles are within
purpose built Special Treatment Units (STUs). These units are separated from
the main prison population in order to facilitate a rehabilitation focus.
Each STU specialises in a specific offending need such as sexual offending,
violence or those with mixed offending profiles. Psychologists provide
comprehensive assessment and long term group therapy based on cognitive
behavioural principles. Groups comprise of ten inmates and run for 7-8
months.
Senior
Psychologists: complete all the
tasks described in the previous two types of positions with the addition of providing clinical
supervision, referral management, complex assessments and expert
testimony.
Principal
Psychologists:
are managers
responsible for; leading, developing and supervising a team of
psychologists; providing psychological services including
assessment, treatment, research, training; managing
relations with other services, agencies and groups; and the allocation
and effective utilisation of resources.
Programme Facilitators: assess offenders for programme
suitability, prepare and deliver programme sessions, liase with case
officers and probation officers regarding offender progress, draft reports
as required, run maintenance groups and attend supervision and
training.
Rehabilitation
Workers: work in
Special Treatment Units and assist leading therapy groups, assist in
data gathering, work with families and community groups, monitor the
reconditioning process and oversee the release and follow up programme.
Pobation Officers:
assess offender behaviour using assessment
tools, formulate sound recommendations to assist the judiciary in
sentencing, identify appropriate interventions to establish sentence
management plans and work closely with targeted offenders.
Service Managers:
lead a team of Probation Officers in delivering
quality sentence management. They have strong leadership skills and are
analytical in approach to problem-solving. They have the ability to manage
people and time, and have excellent communication and relationship-building
skills.
Trainers:
effectively deliver high quality training to staff who undertake offender
assessment and who deliver rehabilitative intervention programmes to
offenders. They will deliver training,
participate in the development of course content and materials, and promote
and model high standards of skill development and process integrity for
course participants.
Prison Nurses:
facilitate inmates access to
a normal range of health services, while targeting “at risk” inmates for
special co-ordinated services, and contribute to the achievement of
sentence management plans.
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