RAN REHABILITATION Crises in rehabilitation – safeguarding practitioners and approaches, online meeting 27-28 May 2021

Rehabilitation programmes (including probation, exit and deradicalisation work) are at constant risk of crises. Rehabilitation work, like any other social intervention type, will never be able to guarantee a 100 % success rate.

This risk concerns multiple levels. Firstly, it concerns individual practitioners, who may become the direct target of reoffending or reengaging (former) extremists with whom they work. Secondly, it concerns the work itself and the organisations or institutions carrying it out. Lastly, it concerns society at large which may also be threatened by such individuals.

It has become an unfortunate reality that, unlike any other type of social intervention, rehabilitation approaches as a whole come under public criticism and/or doubt at the slightest suspicion of error. A number of previous RAN events and papers have focused on this tier: threats to society and how to best prevent them within various programmes.

Adjusting the focus, this paper will look into the first and second tiers to address the following issues. How to safeguard individual practitioners and prepare them for the worst case of their clients reoffending. How to improve crisis communication and public perceptions of rehabilitation programmes in general to avoid serious reputation damage the entire organisation every time something might happen. Some of the key take-aways include the following.