Section 2: Assessment & Case Planning

III. Risk, Needs, and Responsivity

Staff Issues

"Different strokes for different folks" sums up the responsivity principle. Staff should consider offenders' stage of change and state of being at the time of developing and monitoring the supervision plan, particularly for the level and type of treatment and control services. The preferred process is for the offender to be part of the decision-making process. Offenders can learn from the diagnosis process whereby risk and need assessments are reviewed and analyzed. This will assist offenders to understand why a particular level of control or treatment service is recommended or included in the service plan. More importantly, the assessment of the offender's individual risk and need factors should be discussed as part of the rationale for the plan. The key is to communicate with the offender regarding the various needs, this is part of an overall strategy of:

  1. informing the offender of the risk and need factors that are threats to the community;
  2. building the offender's awareness of the relationship between these factors and the areas of change;
  3. and garnishing support from the offender for the service plan.
The key to responsivity is to assist the offender to become engaged in selecting appropriate control and treatment services that will benefit the offender.