THE KAIZEN COURSE
The Kaizen course is for adult males who are high or very high risk and it is typically for sexual offenders but also used for violent offenders and those who commit violence against their partners.
It is “future based” which means it looks towards future ideas and problems rather than looking back at offence types. So, people’s offences are not discussed openly, and people are encouraged to look at the value of therapeutic relationships and to discuss “denial” and how that impacts on the future.
In time this course will replace the Healthy Relationships Programme.
It looks at the common needs of offenders and the influence of biological, Psychological and Sociological factors that impact on offending. It focuses on a person’s individual strengths, on how to avoid future offending and applying what psychologists call a “brain friendly approach to learning.
What those maintaining innocence must be aware of is that they are NOT being tricked into admitting guilt and they will not be forced to talk about things that they have not done!! BUT, words such as “your victims” or “your offences” are used commonly. These can and should be ignored to progress through the programme.
If prisoners take the course to learn about offending behaviour or as a way towards further “self-discovery” this can be a positive process. Although, psychologists also talk about low motivation, poor engagement and treatment interfering behaviours, try not to be drawn into arguments about this!
Your “denial” will continue to be interfering with treatment but it will not stop you proving to professionals and others that you have a healthy attitude towards child protection, the use of violence and healthy relationships and that generally you have no pro-criminal attitudes. All of this helps the professionals to assess future risk, whether you believe there is any or not!!
The criteria that applicants must meet is that they must be considered “High Risk” to be in “High Need” and to be a “High Priority” for completing the work and this will vary with individuals according to length of sentence, type of offending and any other objectives that might be set in their sentence plan. They can decide to put “Medium Risk” prisoners onto a course using “clinical override” if they feel there is a real need.
The course looks at what is called a “Strength Wheel” and this includes the following:
Positive Relationships
Managing Life’s problems
Healthy Thinking
Healthy Sex
My view is that those who maintain innocence have much more to prove than those who are guilty and if they are stating that they do not pose any risk in the future and feel they have a good balanced attitude to life, what better way to prove it!
The course lasts for an average of 160 hours (68 group sessions and 11 one to one).
