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Reaching Out to the Forgotten Few

BY G. Chartier, Communications Officer, Communications and Citizen Engagement

Sue Bruff has just returned from the mainland to St. John’s, Newfoundland, where she works as a community parole officer for the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC). “I was visiting prisons,” she says of her week away touring several Atlantic Region institutions on the mainland. “We have 10 offenders, originally from Newfoundland, incarcerated in the federal system.”

Bruff works with what is termed “complex-needs offenders with significant mental health issues.”

“A lot of them have had long-term institutionalization, been in the system for years and years,” she says. “I call them ‘the forgotten few,’ the more vulnerable population. For lack of better words, they fell through the cracks of the mental health system and they fell into the criminal justice system.”

A Little History on Early Identification

The need for the provision of specialized services and a coordinated approach toward service delivery for this offender population has been recognized for a number of years. In 1998, a series of meetings between CSC Newfoundland and Labrador District, provincial government officials and non-profit organizations (including Stella Burry Community Services and the Waterford Hospital) helped plant the seeds for the Community Support Project. Research funding was provided by CSC and provincial government departments.

At that time, there was talk of the need for early identification of these cases and for the community to link with the institution to follow them from the date of sentencing until release to the community. Proponents also noted that there was a need for transition to community services once the offender had reached his/her warrant expiry date.

“It was recognized that we needed to start working with these people early in their sentences if we were going to be effective at all,” says Bruff. “So we identified these offenders in the federal prisons in the Atlantic Region and I started visiting them.”

Working with Complex-Needs Offenders

“I work closely with the team in the institution around the needs of the offender, decide what programs should be taken and encourage him/her to participate.”

The offender’s case is then referred to Stella Burry Community Services for consideration for supervision under the Community Support Project. At this stage, contacts are also made with other community resources in an effort to develop a plan for the offender upon his/her release. Ambulatory Services psychiatric nurses with the federal institution also play an integral role in connecting the offender with mental health resources in the community. The offender’s family members and significant others are also included in this process. Most importantly, the offender is actively involved in all areas of release planning.

In addition to working with the case management team of the Community Support Project, the offender also works closely with the case management team of the Newfoundland and Labrador Community Correctional Centre (CCC). Many of the complex-needs mental health cases require residency in a structured environment in preparation for reintegration to the community. The staff of the CCC, therefore, plays an important role in the day-to-day management of these offenders residing at that facility.

“We fine-tune their plan for the community and they know who is going to supervise them. They’ve already established a rapport with me. I’m already after making my connections with the community team, I’m after fine-tuning the release plan so there are no surprises when they get out.”

Fine-Tuning Release Plans

Ms. Bruff began working with this particular population of offenders in 2001. In addition to working with them post-release, she prepares them for release while they are still incarcerated.

“We must then come up with some sort of plan to supervise this person and also deal with their mental health needs as well as managing their risk in the community.

“There were a lot of pitfalls in that, of course, because when you’re dealing with this type of individual, each person is unique and each has such significant issues. You really have to fine-tune their release plan if you’re going to have them come out into the community and be successful in their reintegration.”

A Background in Social Work

Sue Bruff says that she is lucky to be doing the work she always wanted to do. She studied social work at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, spending her work terms in corrections at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s, a provincial institution, and working with mentally ill individuals in the community.

In her early 20s, a rare form of Meniere’s disease left her profoundly deaf for three and a half years. Shortly after she regained some of her hearing, she returned to the field of corrections, working with the John Howard Society for a number of years before commencing employment with the Correctional Service of Canada.

“So, from way back then, the seed was planted because here I am today and I’m working with the mentally ill offender population in the community and in the institutions.”

Long-Term Supervision Orders

“I have three on my case load now who are on long-term supervision orders [LTSO],” she says. Two of those individuals reside in the Newfoundland and Labrador CCC and one in the community.

An LTSO extends the length of time that CSC can supervise and support an offender in the community beyond the completion of his or her regular sentence. It provides an alternative to lifetime incarceration as a way of managing certain complex-needs offenders.

“You can imagine an offender sentenced in court to a federal term with 10 years supervision added on. Beyond that is dangerous offender [status], where an offender could be incarcerated indefinitely,” says Bruff of the serious nature of an LTSO.

“For most of these offenders, during their term of incarceration, I am their only contact in the community.”

Prison Is Their Home

“The cases I deal with end up being in and out, in and out, all the time, because the prison is in fact their home too, for some of them.”

The majority of offenders Ms. Bruff deals with are well known to every system in the city.

“The federal prisons know them, the provincial prisons know them, the police know them, legal aid knows them, social services and psychiatric facilities know them, food banks know them. There are certain pockets of people who just exhaust every system in the community — yet the systems aren’t coming together to meet their needs.”

Partners in the Community

In order to help these complex-needs offenders, CSC staff work very closely with other community-based agencies.

“I’ve got all kinds of contact with mental health professionals,” says Ms. Bruff. In particular, Stella Burry Community Services (SBCS) cooperates with CSC on the jointly funded Community Support Project, providing a range of services to Ms. Bruff’s offenders.

“I’m the parole officer on this team,” she says. The case management team for the Community Support Project also comprises other staff from CSC, including a senior parole officer, contract psychologist, psychiatric nurses from Ambulatory Services, as well as staff from SBCS (three social workers, an employment counsellor and community support workers). The support workers provide the one-on-one service to offenders to assist them in enhancing their basic living skills, such as cooking, budgeting, shopping, medication management, attending appointments and advocacy.

“When their sentence ends, the beauty of it is that the support services from Stella Burry do not end. SBCS continues to work with them over the long term. So there’s a reduction in psychiatric admissions and jail admissions once they’ve got the supports in place.”

Believing People Can Change

“After all these years, this makes sense to me. I get excited talking about it because I see the results. When you see an improved quality of living for these people, to me that’s what it’s all about. They view you as someone who is looking out for them and caring about what happens to them.

“To work in this field,” she adds, “you have got to be a people person, you have got to want to help people, and you have got to believe that they can change.” ♦