Strengths Based Ways of Working and Why it Matters for HMPPS 

Professor David Best PhD

Sarah Bridgland

Insights Lead,

HMPPS

So what is ‘strengths-based practice’?  

How is it different from traditional rehabilitative approaches?  

Do staff believe it will make a difference?  

How do we move from providing a service to people; to providing services with people?  

And what are the implications for prison and probation practitioners who are required to balance strengths-based approaches with public protection?  

In some ways, strengths-based practice is another new buzz word gaining traction in prison and probation rehabilitation (and wider public services). But it still lacks a clear definition and framework for delivery in HMPPS.  

Over the past year we’ve been part of a HMPPS project working with commissioners, frontline colleagues, staff and people with lived experience and desistance-expert Professor Shadd Maruna to better understand and apply how HMPPS can deliver these approaches in their future commissioned rehabilitative services.  

Through this work, we’ve defined strengths-based approaches as those that:  

• treat people as individuals with talents and abilities to contribute to society  

• are person first – work with people in a collaborative way to explore their whole circumstances and ‘what matters to them’. 

• focus on community and family, using people’s family and local community resources, environments and social support networks. 

• provide opportunities to contribute to others and to the wellbeing of the community.  

• are relational – recognising relationships with family, friends, peer networks and professionals as key to supporting for change. 

• involve peers and those with lived experience 

Part of why we want to include people with lived experience is to move away from the traditional expert-patient model where the person may get better but remains disempowered. A strength-based model is based on shared learning and mutuality – where ideally both people benefit from the exchange – and both are empowered and humanised through the process.  

A strength-based model places genuine human connection at the heart of the process. Creating a radius of trust and respect is the foundation for supporting people towards the goals of ‘somewhere to live, someone to love and something to do’ – but achieving these goals through their own unique blend of skills and capabilities.  

Many of these approaches are already visible across prison and probation: in peer mentoring; drug recovery wings; desistance-focused conversations in probation; and approaches to rehabilitative culture in prisons. What we are trying to do is to build a model around existing innovation placing personal and social growth and community connection at its heart, and whose goal is sustainable wellbeing. 

For the next round of commissioned services, HMPPS want to place strengths-based practice at the heart of service delivery – where staff walk alongside people in their community to help them access resources and build lives that are “better than well”. This means not aiming to manage symptoms and address deficits, but to live a life that has meaning and makes a difference for the people involved, and ideally for their families and communities. 

Earlier this year, we worked with frontline staff to briefly test out these approaches and understand their experience of transitioning to strengths-based practice. In their words:  

“Rather than starting from a deficit model of, when done badly, what’s wrong with you? What can we fix? It’s more, what’s going well? What can we build on? …The real kind of crux of assertive linkage into the community is recognising that our intervention is kind of short term. And to bring about rehabilitative [change] you need to connect people to resources that are longer term and exist as a wider part of their life” 

The approaches were met with both excitement and enthusiasm – and for some, apprehension about letting go of current skills and structured ways of working. At this Insights event, we will explore both the opportunities and challenges of embedding strengths-based practice more widely. This is key – for lots of lived experience peers – and for lots of professionals – this is how people want to work – building relationships, generating hope and supporting people to build lives with dignity, meaning and purpose.  

Get your ticket – Strengths-based ways of working: The next generation of Commissioned Rehabilitative Services | 1a 2b 3a – *Online MS Teams 

As CRS services are currently being re-commissioned, this event is for HMPPS and MoJ staff only. This event will be re-run in 2026 for staff working in the criminal justice system, including third sector and private organisations. 

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