A whole systems approach for women in the CJS

Russell Webster reviews the findings of a new report from Clinks.

Clinks (the national infrastructure charity for the voluntary sectors working in the CJS) yesterday published a report on a ‘Whole Systems Approach’ for women in contact with the criminal justice system. Clinks convenes Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to advise on specific areas of policy and practice as the need arises. This SIG follows the establishment of the Women’s Justice Board (WJB) and was instituted in order to provide feedback to both bodies from the perspective of the voluntary sector working in criminal justice. The work is closely aligned with the Government’s high profile Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.

The report’s findings are based on consultation with 44 individuals drawn from both voluntary and statutory organisations with experience in supporting women through ‘whole system approaches’ (WSAs). The report also includes information from the MoJ on the 4 WSA pilots in an Annex to the report. A Rapid Evidence Review of the impact of women-specific WSAs is being conducted by the MoJ and findings from this will be published in the future.

The report defines an effective WSA for women as delivering gender-responsive, holistic support through joined-up local service provision, which is locally led; partnership-focused & evidence-based.

This report outlines its findings and recommendations in four main sections. Section One examines three WSAs and their common factors. Section Two explores additional critical success factors, as well as the challenges and barriers to delivering WSAs. Section Three highlights the importance of evaluation and impact, and Section Four provides collaboratively developed recommendations for effective WSA implementation.

In this article, we focus on the critical success factors identified by this working group:

Structures

The report recommends that the structure for a WSA should feature a lead organisation, with a clear co-ordination role to ensure effective communication and information sharing between all relevant agencies. It also emphasises accessible and streamlined data systems, combined with joint working arrangements across agencies.

Strategic leadership

The report also argues that visible strategic leadership, across all key agencies, and board-level commitment are critical for WSAs and that leadership should be equally shared between voluntary and statutory organisations. The report notes that in too many cases, voluntary sector partners are expected to perform key roles within a WSA, without appropriate (or any) funding.

Accountability

The report sensibly recommends that accountability should be via existing strategic boards, (e.g. Reducing Reoffending Boards, Local Criminal Justice Boards) rather than creating new structures and embedding WSA for women into overall planning and progress monitoring.

Multi-agency approach

The report emphasises the importance of senior strategic buy-in from a range of public bodies with champions in all agencies to drive the approach. There are a number of different operational models including:

• Co-location at numerous women’s centres of various services
• Co-location of probation and Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS) providers
• ‘Female Concentrator’ model where some probation staff have a majority of women on their caseload enabling expertise in gendered working to develop.
• Communication and links with local Family hubs and schools/nurseries, and other local services for children and families

Shared outcomes frameworks

The report argues that shared outcomes frameworks (housing, health, family, employment) enable clear evaluation and can be used to provide evidence of impact which will encourage reinvestment and sustainability of WSA models.

Funding

There are currently a number of different funding models in place and the report advocates ring-fenced, long-term funding which provides full cost recovery and core costs for the specialist women’s organisations, saying that the current reliance on short-term grants/commissioning creates competition between VCSE organisations and undermines sustainability.

Alignment with health and care systems

The report recommends embedding WSA principles within health and care plans to ensure that the needs of women in contact with the criminal justice system are recognised as part of mainstream population health priorities.

Embedding lived experience & expertise

The report emphasises that feedback and expertise derived from lived experience experts are central to building effective WSA models and funding lived experience involvement is critical.

Commissioning small, specialist community organisations

Finally, the report recommends that small, specialist community organisations — often led by and for Black, minoritised, and migrant women — remain central to advocacy, research, and supporting women’s rights. They embody best practice through trauma-informed, anti-racist, intersectional approaches. More opportunities to commission these organisations, especially through grant funding and in partnership with larger women’s voluntary sector organisations, is essential if local WSAs are to effectively meet the needs of racially minoritised women.

Readers want to access the report in full can find it here.