Psychology paper

Summary and background: In this assignment, it was great to see you note Mr T’s offending: I would provide a little more information regarding the context of this offending for the officers. I was pleased to see you note his prior conviction for assault. Whilst confidentiality is important, your task here is to brief the officers, so you are able to present details of his childhood that are relevant, and I would hesitate to say that these experiences caused his offending – tehy may be risk factors, but many young people experience adverse events and do not go on to offend, so be careful with a causative inference. I would have liked to see you present a little more information about his social and relationship history, recreational drug use and sexual education via pornography, all of which is relevant, but it was good to see you note his edcuational and employment history.

Ethics: In this section, it was good to see you note the importance of a range of ethical principles, including confidentiality (it would be important to note the limitations of confidentiality here around risk to self and others, mandatory reporting and required report of prior offending), multiple relationships, and treating him with respect and dignity. The risk of his reoffending towards female guards, and his risk towards other inmates aren’t ethical issues as such – this is more a part of the risk assessment. Other issues that you could focus on here include maintaining professional competence, reputable and professional behaviour, or collaboration with other professionals. Again, as a system-ordered assessment you aren’t required to maintain confidentiality here.
Engagement: I was pleased to see you consider the value of empathic rapport, and communicative attunement, and the value of genuineness. I would be careful regarding self-disclosure, given the potential for personal risks. In relation to stages of change, this client is probably at a pre-contemplative stage, and moving through these stages will take time, and is unlikely to be fully completed during his term of incarceration. Your description of MI and OARS was a little confusing – perhaps just focusing on the simpler strateiges, eg. explaining what you mean by the OARS strategies and how they can promote engagement, would be a good start. To extend here, it would be good to think about why Mr T might be service resistant (reasons for this could be based on his history of aggression and hostility and non-voluntary nature of the engagement), and to consider seeing Mr T as a Fellow Traveller, rather than a moral stranger, as a way to promote engagement.
Recidivism Risk assessment. It was great to see you introduce the STATIC99 assessment (describing this would be great), however the correct score here is a 5 (based on non-contact sex offence conviction (the index offence), prior non-sexual violence conviction (there was no violence associated with the index offence), unrelated victim, and his age and lack of prior relationship history). Framing this within dynamic risks to adjust your risk assessment would be good. I would frame this in the context of the Big4 framework, including his antisocial cognitions (his lack of remorse may be attributed here), antisocial associates, antisocial behaviours and antisocial personality. In relation to his childhood, these are less relevant, but evidence-based risks include his history of substance use (he uses substances recreationally), lack of emotional intimacy, poor coping and tendency to break rules as additional relevant potential risks with this client. However, it is then really critical to consider the current context for this assessment, in that the risk of Mr T engaging in sexual offending is probably low (given limited opportunity as you note), but he may make inappropriate advances to female staff and/or engage in sexual harassment, and physical aggression and violence in the centre is perhaps more likely.
Personal Risk – In this section, I was pleased that you noted the potential for professional (this could be described within the psychological risks of stress), psychological (here I would note these as potential for vicarious trauma and burnout in particular) and physical risks (this might be more specifically noting Mr T’s potential for aggression, and the potential for breaches of personal privacy). Self-care strategies weren’t required in this assignment, but some relevant ideas offered.
Narration: Your narration was generally clear and well-paced, but it would be great to separate out the narration to link on each page to the content. More rehearsal would also assist with fluency here.
Slides: Your slide design was clean and easy to follow, with a good mix of images/icons and key words
Overall, I appreciate that you had put thought, effort, and preparation into your presentation, and I hope this feedback is useful. Please alsorefer to the marked rubric for more information, and best wishes – Liz C

this was my feedback from previous work, might be helpful too