Forensic Focus: Working Therapeutically with Women in Secure Mental Health Settings (PDF)

`This book is an invaluable resource for all healthcare professionals working with women in secure services. It offers an insight into the needs of an often reviled but vulnerable client group.'

-Journal of Advanced Nursing

`The Editors have successfully maintained a readable and thought-provoking style in a multi-author text and the book can be recommended to all mental health professionals in this field'.

-The Mental Health Review, Vol 10 Issue 3

`This publication is aimed at practitioners who work with women in secure settings. There is relatively little material available which integrates practice, research and service development issues in this challenging area, and this publication fills an important gap. The first section explores and explains the theoretical issues which should underpin relevant policies and practices by the different practitioners operating in this, somewhat neglected, field. The section covers matters such a gender and forensic mental health, the vulnerability of women in prison, and women's pathways into and through secure mental health services. The second focuses on practice issues including challenges for forensic mental health nurses; experiences of women patients, and lessons for practice from a women's group in a medium secure setting. The final section explores key themes for service development. This is a thought-provoking and authoritative resource.' - Care and Health Magazine

`This is an honest and open review of the challenges faced by staff working with women in secure mental health settings, and current research, thinking and developments in service provision. It's contributors provide a rich multi-disciplinary perspective, in welcome contrast to the medical model that more usually drives high and medium secure units…Contributors question current practice in, for example, the management of aggression and the use of response teams, discussing these interventions from the viewpoints of service users and suggesting more positive alternative approaches…well-written and intense insight into working with this challenging client group.' -Mental Health Today

A pressing need for the integration of current practice, research and service development is addressed in this comprehensive book, which explores the experience of work with women in secure mental health settings.

The first section offers different perspectives on the needs and situations of this minority population. It includes consideration of the differing needs of women and men, and key environmental and therapeutic issues highlighted by recent research and service provision. Further chapters cover clinical illustrations of work with women in different settings, including descriptions of integrated multi-disciplinary practice, discussion of the experience of female patients and staff on a mixed sex ward, and exploration of therapeutic groupwork. The final section offers practice guidelines and frameworks for both individual staff and professional teams. At a time when the government's national agenda for mental health has focused on specialist secure provision for women, this book is essential reading for all those working in this challenging area.