A 30-year legacy in prison-based AOD programs

A 30-year legacy in prison-based
AOD programs

From 1994 - 2023, Caraniche provided clinical services to thousands of clients in prisons every year

Caraniche was the state-wide provider for prison-based drug and alcohol (AOD) programs, under contract from Department of Justice and Regulation, through Justice Health, for three decades.

Our work with offenders commenced with the delivery of a therapeutic community program for substance using offenders in K Division, Pentridge. From this beginning, Caraniche expanded our services to work across all 13 public prisons in Victoria. With a suite of 26 evidence-based programs tailored to the unique and diverse needs of adults in custody, our program offerings ranged from harm reduction to intensive therapeutic programs, with many programs having additional gender and culturally-specific variants.

Our final evaluation report covering July 2021 – December 2022 details our program model and positive treatment outcomes. It can be found here.

“I’ve done the 44-hour program, and the Sustaining Change program. I’m a different person now. I know what my triggers are, and I’ve got tools to pull me away from that. I can choose to make the right decision”.

JOHN’S STORY – CLIENT FROM MIDDLETON

Caraniche paved the way for major ongoing reform and transition in Corrections

Since its inception, Caraniche has been at the forefront of delivering innovative AOD treatment in the forensic space and has had the opportunity to grow and extend its impact with the changes in the system over that time. It’s a process of change that’s still ongoing, seeing movement towards a more rehabilitative approach for those in custody.

With our expertise and experience in forensic AOD treatment, Caraniche shaped and influenced the AOD treatment available to all offenders in Victoria by developing new models of care, implementing Australia’s first accredited prisons based AOD Therapeutic Community (at DPFC), and introducing peer led programs to the Victorian prison system in 1997. We also implemented the Treatment Support Officer (TSO) role within Victoria and provided specialist training and supervision to prison officers supporting them to take a more active role in case management and offender rehabilitation.

Most recently, Caraniche developed the gender-responsive and trauma-informed training ‘SaferSkills’ for all prison officers working across the women’s prison system.

Unmatched scale of support

Services delivered by Caraniche saw the number of clients reached grow exponentially over time, enabling our team to positively impact the lives of thousands of offenders every year.

“This has been very helpful and is making my time in prison feel like I’m getting the right help”

– Individual Counselling Participant

“It helped having someone who understood my needs and help further developed my strengths so I don’t make the same mistakes again.”

– Individual Counselling Participant

Caraniche continues to be a key provider of AOD treatment to vulnerable and at-risk clients

While Caraniche no longer works directly in Victorian public prisons we continue to provide training and consultancy and we still work with offenders on community orders, deliver specialist services to young offenders, are involved in Drug Court programs and offer state-wide High-Risk Offender AOD service (HiRoads).