just time evaluation report

The report of the external evaluation of Connect42’s Just Time program at Risdon Prison has been released. Delivered by experienced speech-language pathologists, Just Time uses the Circle of Security Parent DVD Program® as its central tool.

The evaluators concluded:

“This is an excellent program that provides hope, skills and capacity to a particularly vulnerable population. The program is well supported within the prison system by all the key stakeholders and, while there is always room for improvement, it has a demonstrated positive effect on participants. It is an intervention that is making a difference, within an environment that is generally difficult when it comes to the successful delivery of potentially life changing programs.”

Our gratitude is to Minister Elise Archer who championed and enabled this program – and also to her teams. The evaluation was possible because of government funding support. Thank you, Minister Archer.

Our gratitude also goes out to the team of evaluators who met us with respect, energy, professionalism and flexibility at every point. You were a pleasure to work with.

And of course our gratitude is always with the respectful, generous and hard-working teams at the Tasmania Prison Service with whom we deal on a daily basis and without whom we could not do our work. Thanks you lot. You are unflagging enablers.

Large thanks, of course, to the wonderful crowd at Circle of Security International who with their Circle of Security program have set life-changing insights free in the world for all to draw upon. And they’ve been gorgeous mentors and colleagues since Just Time began in 2014.

And last, precisely because they’re not least, many, many thanks to the fabulous participants and facilitators. In the words of Bert Powell, co-author of the Circle of Security, “COSP is a good program, and the legs that hold it and make it work are the facilitators”. And in the words of one of our courageous participants:

“But we all kind of realised that we were in it together, and we could talk to each other about it. Instead of being all closed off and private, which in here it’s a very big thing to not be vulnerable. A lot of girls were vulnerable, and it kind of helped me in a way to make better friendships with people and to help them by sharing my story…” (Interview, Participant 6).