UnitingCare West Outreach Services and the Good Lives Model of offender rehabiliation

UnitingCare West is a not-for-profit community services organisation committed to achieving justice, hope and opportunity for all, and works to support and empower in particular those most in need in the WA community. Through its program Outreach Services, it delivers a specialist re-entry service for sex offenders and men serving life and indeterminate sentences. The program has recently been reviewed by Dr Andrew Day from the Centre for Offender Reintegration, Deakin University with input from Dr Tony Ward, University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand. In this paper we describe the aims of the review, the process and findings and our ongoing work in developing a rationale for the service that is underpinned by the Good Lives Model (GLM) of offender rehabilitation. More generally, the presentation will seek to understand the needs of offenders who re-enter the community following long-term imprisonment in relation to those areas of need identified in the GLM.