Risk Management of Sexual Offenders in the community is one of the most complex and difficult tasks. It is one area where the credibility and effectiveness of professional agencies is measured in the public domain particularly in the light of serious incidents and risk management failures. Risk management forms an essential role within social work, expending considerable amounts of time and attention engaged in complex decision-making dilemmas.
In some cases practitioners may become ‘risk averse’ in their decision making impeding the progression of restorative processes, rehabilitation, community integration out of fear of potentially aversive consequences if things go wrong. We assist in making difficult defensible decisions by exploring the cost benefits and the context of risk realities from an evidenced-based perspective.
Due to the dynamic nature of risk situations and their potential harm impact, WP-R consultants aim to respond with flexibility and immediacy whenever possible.
“The complexity of the world means that uncertainty and risks are features of child protection work. Risk management cannot eliminate harm, only reduce its occurrence”
Munro. E. The Child's Journey' (2010)
The aim of risk management is to reduce the likelihood and impact of harm to others by developing and enhancing protective factors (both extrinsic supports and intrinsic strengths). Achievement of this multi-faceted goal is a complex task requiring clear coordinated approaches.
At WP-R consultants promote the importance of contextualising risk-related behaviours so that a clearly designed risk management plan is directly linked to a robust risk assessment outline shared with all the agencies involved. We encourage this collaborative process as working in isolation can be professionally unproductive and potentially lead to mistakes.
WP-R has experience in advising in cases where there are overwhelming number of risk factors, and few (if any) protective factors.
