Wasted time.
Oct. 30th, 2009 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lolabobsI went to a training event today - "dealing with women offenders."
They started out with some sweeping statements along the lines of "had we noticed that women offenders had much more complex problems than men?" When one or two of us pointed out that this was an unhelpful approach, and how, as a rule, we liked to address people as individuals and consider their problems accordingly they backtracked a little, to point out that "some women had complex problems as did some men". So far so educational.
The in depth traning then looked at some case studies, asking us to identify the problems of these fictional characters - we do the reality of this every single day in our jobs; working with and reviewing a persons obstacles and problems. The cases presented were much teh same and the sole 'woman'specific aspect presented was that one of teh cases was a female sex worker. Ever other problem identified was non gender specific. We, as a group suggested gender elements and played along, but it was an insultingly simplified waste of time. Theyhadn't even considered issues of domestic violence. It ended by them issuing a 'resource list' for those working with women offenders - with the caveat that they don't know the area, so perhaps *we* could tell *them* some of the local resources to put on their list!
The afternoon session was marginally more interesting, as it focussed on women in teh sex industry. But it wasn't particularly helpful as we don't have a lot of contact with this client group because they don't tend to receive sentences where we would be working with them. It seemed to be an afternoon about education and removing stereotypes but mistargeted because pretty much, people in my job? Have an awareness of needs and circumstances and choices and the like. It's pretty much hammered home from day one - plus,it's kinda part of teh job.
One of teh trainers works on an outreach project, going onto teh streets and provided condomes, food, support etc for sex workers. Her anecdotes were interesting (although again, not particularly educational). She spent a good while telling us about a fantastic drop in/support facility - before adding that this was in Bristol and there was nothing like it in our area... which was helpful.
The one fact that everyone was suprised by was her assertion that the 'going rate' for sex was between £30 and £5. When people expressed an element of dismay at someone being in a situation where they value themselves/are valued so lowly she seemed to think we were judging the women for prostitution and went off on an allegory of the married woman who no longer loves her husband but stays for teh security...
All in all it was a waste of a day. I (and my colleagues) had kind of assumed it would have been more about 'this, this and this have been identified as gender specific issues, this is what resources we have to deal with them' - not 'women have deeper problems than men. well, except when you disagree with us, in which case no they don't but they have some and I don't know what resources you've got to help, but lets have some biscuits'
The annoying thing was, they were reasonably good trainers - the materials were well presented, they had good pacing and motivation - it was just rubbish/mistargetted subject matter.
They started out with some sweeping statements along the lines of "had we noticed that women offenders had much more complex problems than men?" When one or two of us pointed out that this was an unhelpful approach, and how, as a rule, we liked to address people as individuals and consider their problems accordingly they backtracked a little, to point out that "some women had complex problems as did some men". So far so educational.
The in depth traning then looked at some case studies, asking us to identify the problems of these fictional characters - we do the reality of this every single day in our jobs; working with and reviewing a persons obstacles and problems. The cases presented were much teh same and the sole 'woman'specific aspect presented was that one of teh cases was a female sex worker. Ever other problem identified was non gender specific. We, as a group suggested gender elements and played along, but it was an insultingly simplified waste of time. Theyhadn't even considered issues of domestic violence. It ended by them issuing a 'resource list' for those working with women offenders - with the caveat that they don't know the area, so perhaps *we* could tell *them* some of the local resources to put on their list!
The afternoon session was marginally more interesting, as it focussed on women in teh sex industry. But it wasn't particularly helpful as we don't have a lot of contact with this client group because they don't tend to receive sentences where we would be working with them. It seemed to be an afternoon about education and removing stereotypes but mistargeted because pretty much, people in my job? Have an awareness of needs and circumstances and choices and the like. It's pretty much hammered home from day one - plus,it's kinda part of teh job.
One of teh trainers works on an outreach project, going onto teh streets and provided condomes, food, support etc for sex workers. Her anecdotes were interesting (although again, not particularly educational). She spent a good while telling us about a fantastic drop in/support facility - before adding that this was in Bristol and there was nothing like it in our area... which was helpful.
The one fact that everyone was suprised by was her assertion that the 'going rate' for sex was between £30 and £5. When people expressed an element of dismay at someone being in a situation where they value themselves/are valued so lowly she seemed to think we were judging the women for prostitution and went off on an allegory of the married woman who no longer loves her husband but stays for teh security...
All in all it was a waste of a day. I (and my colleagues) had kind of assumed it would have been more about 'this, this and this have been identified as gender specific issues, this is what resources we have to deal with them' - not 'women have deeper problems than men. well, except when you disagree with us, in which case no they don't but they have some and I don't know what resources you've got to help, but lets have some biscuits'
The annoying thing was, they were reasonably good trainers - the materials were well presented, they had good pacing and motivation - it was just rubbish/mistargetted subject matter.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-30 11:56 pm (UTC)