The Irish Prison Service - Custodial Care - Essay Example

Course Title] [Professor’s Name] [Date] Custodial Care Irish Prison Service The Irish Prison Service happens to be a uniformed and well organised organisation and every member of the organisation should be having an ordered approach toward their work. When an individual joins the Irish Prison Service as a Recruit Prison Officer (RPO) he is expected to start with a training programme which provides him assistance in carrying out the assigned responsibilities professionally and competently. The RPOs are supposed to be trained for duration of two years, and most of these two years are spent working placement in the prisons. If an RPO is to be learning the required talents in order to work in the complicated plus demanding settings of the prisons, there is a certain programme designed which would help them in the development of skills that are required if he is to achieve the status of a professional prison officer. The development of this programme in question has been done by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) together with I.T. Sligo and through this programme the RPO achieves a Higher Certificate in Custodial Care. Higher Certificate in Custodial Care The Higher Certificate in Custodial Care (HCCC) in Arts happens to be a recognised third-level educational award at level 6 on the HETAC awards system (Education Ireland). Every RPO is required to successfully complete this mentioned two year programme if they wish to become established prison officers. In the HCCC programme there is a combination of educational and occupational training and the designing has been done such that the skills of the person are developed and the knowledge is polished such that the person is ready to assume the role of a prison officer. There are in total four semesters in HCCC and they are distributed over two years. Every semester has a focus on the various strands which are necessary for the skills and knowledge of the person to be developed and also for training the person such that he is fit to perform the responsibilities of a prison officer. The initial nine weeks of this programme is conducted at the Irish Prison Service Training and Development Centre (IPSTDC) at Beladd House in Portlaoise (Irish Prison Service). It leads to the RPOs getting the required skills that they need to have if they are to work at a prison. The nine week induction training happens to be a feature of semester 1 of the HCCC and it consists of various units which can be on: the duties and responsibilities of prison officers, the rules of a prison, the safety processes and safety theory plus the health in the prisons. The beginning of these nine weeks make up the development of practical skills and lectures in academic theory and these are supplied to the students through the IPSTDC staff and I.T. Sligo lecturers. Custodial Care at IT Sligo The Institute of Technology, Sligo happens to be positioned at quite a cutting edge of the expansion plus deliverance of work-based educational agendas being conducted in Ireland. Higher Certificate in Arts in Custodial Care IT Sligo has started delivering the Higher Certificate in Arts in Custodial Care to more than 300 Recruit Prison Officers of the Irish Prison Service (Institute of Technology, Sligo). This is a novel and quite an interesting programme. The teaching method approached is blended, involving face to face class, together with interactive workshops and also using an interactive website. The focus of the course lies over four areas, namely, “work practice, professional development, health and wellbeing and law and society” (Institute of Technology, Sligo). The I.T. Sligo teaching staff and the colleagues form the IPS Training and Development Unit conduct more than 250 work place visits to the various prisons in Dublin. Every visit is of around an hour and through the visit the RPOs are provided with an opportunity of describing the professional competency and personal development that they have. “As the HCCC is a work based learning programme, it is essential that students are visited in their workplace”, explained Fergus Timmons, Programme Manager. He continued, “The idea of the visits is to make obvious the links between what is learned in the classroom, and how this can be applied to the work of each prison officer. The visits allow us time to explore these areas in some detail” (Institute of Technology: Sligo). Importance of the Course The aim behind this developing of this course was to bring about a response toward the increasing challenges on prison officers in the workplace. Those topics that had been in the front the establishment of the course consisted of novel conception of crime and justice, varied prison populations and various anticipations which the Irish society has about the prison service. The importance of this programme is like that of the initial two years of a three-year degree and it has a wide variety of topics, ranging from fitness plus security and going off to human rights. The programme is taught consistent with the standards of work-based and problem-based learning and this learning happens at Beladd House, which is the Irish Prison Services Training and Developmenet Centre in Portlaoise. Through such a kind of style encouragement is provided to the learners and they work together in groups for the resolution of the kinds of reality complicated matters which the prison officers so often face during their work time. The programme makes a great deal of use of the modern communication technologies for allowing the prison staff to carry on with their students and at the same time stay situated in their own prison workplaces throughout the nation. The work place visits that are made also prove to be very helpful to the RPOs. Paula Kenny, who is the lecturer of the programme, said: “Recruit Prison Officers are really getting to grips with the modules, and are planning the course that they would like their career to take within the IPS. Others have demonstrated excellent critical analysis of their own professional and personal development, and the Irish Prison Service’s competency framework” (Institute of Technology: Sligo). Paula has performed more than 40 visits in three prisons – Cloverhill, Mountjoy and Dóchas. Another representative, Chief Officer Richie Roche of the Irish Prison Service, said that: “The majority of RPOs I have spoken to formally and informally, have said that the Work Place Visits have had a lot of relevance to them, as they see them as placing a value on their job performance. They have also allowed staff from IT Sligo to visit a range of prisons, thereby providing an opportunity to improve on their existing considerable understanding of how prisons work” (Institute of Technology: Sligo). The education plus the progress that is needed for undertaking the responsibilities are supplied by means of this two year programme and syllabus. Following its completion the trainee obtains an award of the national Certificate Level 6 HETAC Accreditation. Most of the concentration of Recruit Prison Officers who undertake and complete the Higher Certificate in Custodial Care (HCCC) programme is toward ensuring professionalism – that the officers become completely capable of carrying out the responsibilities that they get (Public Appointments Service). Through the HCCC there is a provision of social, academic, legal and similar other talents plus information to the Recruit Prison Officers. The HCCC locates the profession inside a huge context of society and this supplies the authorization, resources and support which is required if an effectual prison system is to be developed. The course takes an incorporated style toward the principles, morals and conduct of global best practice. International Recognition IT, Sligo’s Higher Certificate in Custodial Care (HCCC) has been attaining plenty of notice throughout the world. This programme is for the new RPOs of the IPS and this institution now consists of around 400 learners. Dr. Bengt Carlsson from Sweden’s Gothenburg University made a visit to Ireland on the 6th and 7th of April this year for gathering data and for an exchange of concepts related to the delivery of Custodial Care education and learning. Dr Carlsson has had much participation in this kind of an agenda in Sweden and he has taught more than 500 prisons during the last 5 years. “Although we are almost 1,500km apart, our thinking is remarkably similar", said Dr Carlsson. "We both place a lot of emphasis on the prison officer reflecting on their performance as professional custodial care practitioners, we use intensive workshops with small group activity and we use peer supported learning techniques” (Education Ireland). Works Cited “Chinese Government Awards for UCC Postgraduate Students”. Education Ireland. (n.d.). 20th Aug 2009. “Custodial Care course attracts further international recognition”. Education Ireland. 2009. 20th Aug 2009. “Custodial Care Work Place Visits a Great Success.” Institute of Technology: Sligo. Jun 2009. 20th Aug 2009. “Higher Certificate in Arts in Custodial Care.” Institute of Technology: Sligo. (n.d.). 20th Aug 2009. “Preparing for entry to the Irish Prison Service Training &Development Centre”. Irish Prison Service. (n.d.). 20th Aug 2009. “Public Appointments Service”. Irish Prison Service. 2008. 20th Aug 2009. Read More