The mental health needs of women offenders

This month's issue of the journal Advances in Dual Diagnosis contains an article that considers the mental health needs of women offenders based on early findings from our partnership project based at Anawim women's centre in Birmingham. 

Research has consistently found high levels of co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems among women offenders and other groups of vulnerable women, such as the homeless. Many of these women also experience multiple co-existing problems. Research and experience suggest that women with multiple problems can struggle to engage with traditionally structured services and fail to access the holistic support they need.

'A way through the woods: opening pathways to mental health care for women with multiple needs' reports on the early findings from the Anawim pilot in which a mental health nurse is seconded to the women's centre one day a week. The aim of the pilot is to support women with multiple and complex needs to access mental health care from mainstream services as part of a holistic package of care.

This article considers the needs of the women seen and the barriers to accessing and sustaining engagement with mental health care. The findings suggest that the women's mental health needs are often related to traumatic experiences and accompanied by substance misuse problems. 

Key principles of the pilot include:

• provision in a women-only space
• a focus on engagement
• flexibility
• holistic support
• empowering women and voluntary sector staff.

Early successes of the project include engaging formally with 22 ‘hard-to-reach’ women and many more informally; agreeing a pathway into secondary care with Community Mental Health Team managers; four referrals into secondary care and 11 into primary; and the improved confidence and capability of Anawim staff to address mental health need.

However, the article also raises continued concerns about the ability of primary care services to meet the complex needs of these women.

The original article (to be found in Advances in Dual Diagnosis, Vol 4, Issue 2, 2011) published by Emerald Insight can be downloaded from the publisher's website, here. A copy of this article can also be downloaded from our website, here.