Assessing the potential of a women only, gender- and trauma-informed residential rehabilitation pathway for drug dependent women leaving prison - the ARROW project.

Research team

• Professor Sharon Grace (Principal investigator), SBS
• Professor Charlie Lloyd, SBS
• Dr Geoff Page, SBS
• Dr Jude Watson, York Trials Unit (YTU)
• Alex Mitchell, YTU
• Steve Parrott, Department of Health Sciences
• Jinshuo Li, Department of Health Sciences
• Dr Andrew Jones, University of Manchester
• Professor Tim Millar, University of Manchester
• Dr Sarah Page, Staffordshire University

Project Summary

Female prisoners are more likely than male prisoners to use Class A drugs. They often commit crimes to support their drug use and, when they are sent to prison, they frequently ask for help with that drug use. Many women leave prison without a support plan to stay off drugs and most do not even have a safe place to live.  Women can find drug treatment services that accept both men and women difficult because of their experiences of trauma and violence. So it is possible that women-only residential rehabilitation (WORR) might work better in supporting their recovery. WORR services can provide specialist women-centred support, safe accommodation, and help with other issues such as trauma, mental health and finding a job. 

We will examine whether moving women directly from prison to WORR services can support their long term recovery from drug use, helping both them and their children live better lives. As well as long term recovery from drug dependency, we will explore all the other ways in which the women’s lives might have improved, such as employment, housing, relationships with children and better mental and physical health. The study comprises six work packages using mixed methods. These include a survey of commissioners and participatory research with services users and providers in both the drug treatment and criminal justice sectors. Analysis of National Drug Treatment Monitoring System data will track the drug treatment journeys of a cohort of women on release from prison and health economic analysis will explore the scope of costs, benefits and value for money of WORR.

The study will also test whether the best way to evaluate this rehabilitative pathway from prison to WORR is through conducting a randomised controlled trial (RCT). However, because we know that RCTs in criminal justice settings are challenging to get right, we are conducting a feasibility study. This will help us work out whether an RCT is the best way to test whether going from prison to WORR is the most effective way to support women leaving prison and trying to recover from drug dependency or whether other methods might be more effective.