Congratulations to the winners of our Practice Board’s Innovation in Practice Award

Congratulations to the Southern Health Trust Clinical Team within the Multi-Agency Stalking Project, led by Dr Kirsty Butcher, and the National Women's Outreach Service (NWOS), which have both received the award.

The Multi Agency Stalking Project is a collaboration between Southern Health NHS Trust, Hampshire Constabulary, Hampshire Probation Service, and victim advocacy, which aims to increase awareness of stalking, reduce re-offending, increase victim safety, and improve the psychological wellbeing of stalking perpetrators. 

Southern Health's psychologically-led team provides a key part of this partnership by working directly with stalking perpetrators as well as those who manage them, providing assessment, intervention, consultation, and training.

The dedicated team of psychologists and a psychiatrist actively promote a psychologically-based understanding of, and response to, stalking behaviour across the criminal justice system.  Drawing on principles of compassion and social justice to affect change, the team continue to work to raise awareness of stalking, and to provide effective intervention aimed at improving the psychological wellbeing of perpetrators and preventing future victims. 

Principal clinical psychologist and clinical lead Dr Kirsty Butcher said:

"By promoting a psychologically-informed understanding of stalking, we aim to address the issues underlying stalking behaviour in order to reduce the risk of reoffending. This benefits the service-user, protects the victim and any potential future victims, and helps criminal justice agencies respond effectively to stalking."

The National Women's Outreach Service (NWOS) is a highly specialist multi-disciplinary service, funded by NHS England. It is designed to offer support and advice to teams across the women's secure pathway, from a wide range of services and a geographically broad area. Comprised of clinicians from the National High Secure Healthcare Service for Women (NHSHSW), it draws on their significant clinical expertise in working with women who are often complex and present with challenges to their teams, such as acute violence and significant self-harm.

NWOS, formed and established in 2018, has supported teams across the UK catchment area. It is led by a consultant psychologist who works alongside highly specialist consultant forensic psychiatrists and specialist nurses and can draw on negotiated input from other disciplines for specific cases.

The NWOS team draws on their years of knowledge and experience of working with women in the NHSHSW and in working with behaviours which challenge, including violence, relational aggression, severe self-harm and suicidal intent. They have specialist knowledge in reducing restrictive interventions, managing difficult team dynamics and identifying service designs to support patients. NWOS have supported an increased number of patients to transfer successfully to lesser secure settings, which has facilitated an improved capacity in the NHSHSW being able to admit patients at a time of crisis.

The NWOS team offer a supportive consultation service to teams based across the UK, who are managing adult women (over 18 years) within the secure pathway. Referrals are accepted directly, allowing for a quick and direct response to those teams in crisis. Patients on the waiting list for admission to high secure care at the NHSHSW receive frequent involvement from their receiving team which allows positive relationships to be built, and provides support to the teams in their acute management of risk.

Patients moving out of high secure care on trial leave are also better supported by improved planning, increased accessibility to NWOS, and via graded supportive transitioning to their new team in a more supportive way.

Yasmin Siddall, consultant forensic psychologist, lead of the NWOS and joint psychology lead of the NHSHSW, and Dr Trevor Gedeon, consultant forensic psychiatrist and medical lead of the NHSHSW, said:

"We are absolutely delighted to have received this award from the BPS. It has been a privilege to have the hard work of a multidisciplinary team to be recognised in such a way. We are very proud to have supported patients and teams within the Women's Secure Pathway and look forward to continuing to do so and further developing the service."

You can find out more about the Innovation in Practice Award and how to nominate for the 2023 edition on our website.