Applying Circles of Support and Accountability with People Who Access Child Sexual Exploitation Material
This webinar is for professionals and individuals involved in the criminal justice system, restorative justice initiatives, community support programs, and those working with individuals with sexual offense histories. This may include professionals such as counselors, therapists, law enforcement personnel, and individuals involved in the post-release community integration of persons with sexual offense histories.
Circles of Support & Accountability (CoSA) is a restorative justice-informed initiative intended to assist in the post-release community integration of persons with sexual offense histories after periods of incarceration or other detention. It uses community volunteers trained and supported by locally employed professionals and experts. Since its inception, CoSA has been consistently shown to significantly reduce harm while increasing the likelihood of successful integration of participants into the community.
In September 2020, Circles UK launched an innovative new program, Circles ReBoot, which helps individuals who have accessed Child Sexual Exploitation Material, who are typically at high risk to persist in offending, and who have high levels of treatment need.
In this webinar, Riana Taylor and Liz Hickey discuss how Circles Reboot works and share their experiences in implementing it.
Who's Presenting
Liz Hickey
Liz Hickey is a qualified Probation Officer with a Masters degree in Social Work and has spent her working life within the Criminal Justice system. She worked for Wiltshire Probation for many years, where she held (and learnt from) a variety of roles. With the restructuring of Probation, she joined a CRC and was, until 2018, an Assistant Chief Officer and Head of Interventions for the South West of England. Since 2020, Liz has worked as a National Quality Manager at Circles UK, in which role she wrote the Reboot Circle materials with a Circles UK colleague, Louise Pitman and led on the implementation of the pilot.
Riana Taylor
Riana Taylor, M.A Criminology. After an academic career, Riana joined Nelson Mandela’s first democratic government in South Africa as Chief Director of the Department of Safety and Security. In 2000, she became the Head of Strategy for the then Disability Rights Commission in the UK and the Deputy Chief/Director of Strategy for Thames Valley Probation in 2002. Between 2007 and 2009, she worked in China and Vietnam as a consultant for the UNDP and Rego Foundation. In 2010, she joined Wiltshire Probation Trust as Director of Interventions and then, as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation Programme, became the Director of Operations for two Community Rehabilitation Companies (BGSW CRC and DDC CRC). Riana has been the CEO of Circles UK since October 2016.