Olive Travers, senior clinical psychologist with the North Western Health Board and manager of COSC, the Sex Abuse Treatment and Prevention Service
The core of my work is to carry out risk assessment on sex offenders, to provide treatment groups for them and support groups for their family members. As the manager of the service, a lot of my time is taken up ensuring that what we do is to the highest standard possible.
Keeping up with research in the area is also very important as are the days I spend facilitating group meetings with sexual offenders.
On a day when we are facilitating a group session, I meet with the two other members of the team (which might include a psychologist, a social worker, a psychiatrist, and/or a probation and welfare officer) at 10 a.m. for a one-hour long pre-briefing meeting. During this time, we look at what we want to achieve in the day and how we hope to do so.
For instance, we have found applied drama creates the psychological awareness that brings about behavioural change in sex offenders. The session then begins with a check-in during which the men update us on what has been happening in their lives since the previous week.
Many of these men are living on the margins of society and are extremely isolated. There may be issues around contact with their families, with the wider community as well as ongoing court proceedings.
Throughout the day, we must always remain very focused on the objective of our work which is to prevent sexual offending through helping offenders to change dysfunctional behaviour which is harmful to others and themselves.
Our task is to create an environment in which group members learn to question and challenge each other in a non-confrontational but also non-collusive manner. As facilitators we can feel warmth, empathy and respect for the men attending treatment while avoiding collusion with those aspects of their behaviour associated with their offending.
We break for lunch from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. although we usually discuss how the morning session went during this time. In the afternoon session we continue as before until 4 p.m. At the end of the session, we give out a check-list to the men for them to rate their own progress in treatment during the following week. When the men leave, we have an hour long de-briefing session in which a cup of tea or coffee is the first priority.
What motivates me in this work is the evidence and my experience that people are capable of change and that men who are damaged and damaging can become safer members of society. When 5 p.m. comes, I am usually both mentally and physically exhausted and look forward to my drive home through the beautiful Donegal and Sligo countryside listening to Lyric FM on the radio.