Inclusive Community Practices

This course will focus on the management and practice, within community settings and institutions, relevant to those offenders with special needs. Such "special needs" as disorders of cognition, thought, mood, personality, development, or behavior that can impact and/or interfere with treatment programming and rehabilitative interventions will be studied within this course. Issues related to mental health, such as psychiatric disorders, emotional challenges, developmental delays, and learning disabilities will be explored. Substance abuse, viewed as common place within the offender population, so often serves to magnify and fuel other accompanying "special needs", resulting in more complex management and treatment challenges.
The needs of female offenders who, traditionally, have not been effectively serviced within correctional settings, also will be reviewed in this course. Their unique gender differences will speak to the need for developing parenting initiatives, vocational training, and special rehabilitative programs. Additionally, this course will address specific needs and risks of the aging offender, those with physical disabilities, and Aboriginal offenders.