In June, I wrote a blog about a ‘Guide to Desistance’ that I was writing. The blog elicited a great response, with many people sharing their experiences and ideas, so thank you to all who contributed. These ideas really helped to inform the guide, especially the last section entitled ‘Practical next steps.’  Clinks have now published ‘Introducing Desistance: A Guide for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Sector Organisations’. The guide aims to: 

• Provide an accessible summary of the key themes in the desistance literature;
• Explore how VCSE Sector organisations can use the theory to demonstrate the success of their work to policy makers, funders, commissioners and prime providers;
• Give examples of practical steps VCSE Sector organisations can take to support their service users further, informed by desistance theory.

Why will the be guide be useful? Desistance theory resonates powerfully with the work of our VCSE Sector Members as it emphasises the need for a holistic, flexible and person-centred approach to supporting people who have previously offended and wish to stop.  However, much of the successful work our Members undertake to support an individual’s journey is done so without using the label ‘desistance’ process. We hope the guide enables our Members to identify how desistance terminology might be a useful way of communicating about their services.  The guide also provides some advice around practical next steps VCSE Sector organisations could take to develop their services, informed by desistance theory. We are aware that many organisations have already taken some of these steps, which include developing a service user involvement group and creating a theory of change, but we hope we have provided you with inspiration and some new ideas! Finally, the guide gives some ideas about how Clinks members can advocate for desistance theory. I really hope our VCSE Sector Members are encouraged not only to raise the profile of desistance theory but to share their knowledge and experience of supporting the desistance process with each other. Please get in touch! As always, we would really like to hear from you. Please contact Nicola Drinkwater on Nicola.Drinkwater@clinks.org or comment below if you have any thoughts about the guide. It might also be useful to think about the following questions: 

• Has the guide inspired you to do anything differently? If so, how?
• How do you think learning about desistance theory could be shared between organisations?