Who this is for
Written for you if you are an OOCR officer or Neighbourhood Justice Team staff member doing the fact finding, or a community safety commissioning lead, restorative justice practitioner, probation or Integrated Offender Management officer, or third-sector diversion partner making the decision. Reporting lines and team names vary from force to force. The OOCR function sits inside a Neighbourhood Justice Team in some forces, a standalone diversion team in others. If your title doesn’t match the language on this page, the pathway below is still the same conversation.
The gap
Bespoke Therapeutic Programmes for Male Reoffending
Most OOCR pathways are built around structured, group-delivered programmes for domestic abuse or general anger management. They work for a large share of your cohort. They are not built for the man whose behaviour is driven by something a curriculum can’t reach. Unprocessed shame, guilt he can’t articulate, suicidal ideation he’s never disclosed, or what the literature calls thwarted belonging, a man who has disengaged from the relationships that would normally hold him accountable.
Complex presentation, standard pathway.
You refer a man for a low-level offence and he discloses risk, trauma, or entrenched shame during a group session. He has nowhere else in the outcome plan to go, because course facilitators are rarely resourced or mandated to do that clinical work.
Course overflow and unsuitability.
Your existing providers reach capacity, or a case is assessed as unsuitable for a group format. Too complex, too high risk for peer disclosure, or simply not a fit for a fixed curriculum delivered to a cohort.
No off-ramp for disengagement.
A man who drops out of a structured programme is often recorded as non-compliant, with no therapeutic option offered as an alternative. That closes the door on the outcome plan working at all.
The pathway
Holistic Therapy Approaches for Offender Rehabilitation
This is one-to-one, integrative therapeutic work, blending person-centred counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, strengths-based solution-focused technique, and Restorative Practice. It engages a man on a level, not from an authority standpoint. The same posture that gets an honest account of impact in a restorative conference gets an honest account of what’s actually driving the behaviour in a therapy room.
Restorative Practice sits inside that blend deliberately. Accountability and understanding are treated as compatible, not opposed. A man who understands the impact of his actions, and has somewhere to work through what sits underneath them, has a genuine shot at not being back in front of you in six months. Shame-based compliance rarely produces that outcome, so this pathway is built around what does.
It is psychologically flexible by design. The same framework holds a man working through shame and guilt, one disclosing suicidal ideation, and one who simply hasn’t been asked an honest question about his own behaviour in years. It does not require him to fit a diagnosis or a fixed number of sessions before the work can start.
Restorative Practice also stands on its own as a general therapeutic approach, outside any justice context. See how it works as a modality in its own right on the Restorative Practice page.
Practitioner
Chris Brotherton, MNCPS (Acc.), NCPS Accredited Registrant. Advanced Practitioner Member, Addiction Professionals. Restorative Practitioner (in training). Supervised, insured, ICO registered.
Modalities
Integrative, person-centred, CBT, strengths-based solution-focused technique, Restorative Practice. Single-Session Therapy available for a focused, time-limited conversation.
Risk capacity
ASIST-trained Suicide First Aider (LivingWorks PAL / Safe Plan framework). The man you refer can be presenting with shame, guilt, anger, or suicidal ideation and still be within scope. He is not screened out.
Delivery
In person (Southport town centre), secure video, phone, or a mix, built around custody suite timelines and your force operating hours.
Commercial model
Commissioned retainer or fixed-term pilot, funded by your force or partnership. Not a free service, not paid for by the man you refer.
No commissioning required
Flexible Referral Pathways for Probation and Justice Professionals
Not every team wants a commissioned pathway across a wider caseload. If you work in a community safety partnership, restorative justice practice, or a probation or IOM team, you can also refer individual cases informally, agreed one at a time. No service framework, no retainer, no pilot to sign off first.
There is no referral form or portal. Email info@mettletherapy.co.uk with a brief note about the case, what the outcome plan requires, any risk considerations, and how the man would prefer to be contacted. You get a reply within one working day, and Chris offers a free 15-minute introductory call before anything is booked.
Fees for informal referrals are agreed per case, payable by the man or your referring body by agreement, from £35 (30-min check-in) to £55 (50-min session), bespoke blocks from £130. If your force wants a commissioned pathway across a wider caseload, use the framework above instead.
What to include in a referral email
- •The man's first name and preferred contact method (phone, email, or text)
- •A short description of the incident and what the outcome plan requires
- •Any known risk (anger, substance use, suicidal ideation, self-harm) so Chris can prepare appropriately
- •Whether he is aware of and has agreed to the referral
- •Any reporting requirements back to your team (attendance confirmation only, or more)
- •Your name, team, and organisation for Chris's records
Evidencing change
Tracking Behavioural Change and Rehabilitation Outcomes
You need to see behaviour change, not a diagnostic history. This pathway tracks outcomes through a non-diagnostic start, middle, and end review structure, built for justice reporting rather than a psychiatric caseload.
01
Start review.
A baseline conversation, not a clinical assessment. Simple 1 to 10 scaling against emotional regulation, accountability, and risk awareness, plus a first “past self / future self” reflection to anchor where the work begins.
02
Middle review.
The same scales, revisited partway through. Movement, or the lack of it, is discussed plainly with the man, and flagged to you internally if the pathway isn’t landing, not hidden until the end review.
03
End review.
A final scoring pass and a closing “past self / future self” reflection, written up as a short, practical summary of behavioural change (shame and guilt reduction, accountability, and risk awareness) in language you can act on.
Deliberately no PHQ-9, no diagnostic depression scoring, no psychiatric terminology. The measures are practical and behavioural, built to answer “is this working” for you, not to produce a clinical case file.
Information sharing
Specialised Clinical Streams for Targeted Interventions
What comes back to you as the referring officer and what informs service evaluation are never the same report. Conflating them either breaks the therapeutic alliance or produces evaluation data too thin to be useful, so they run on separate tracks from day one.
This split is agreed in the service framework before any case is referred, so you and your commissioners both know exactly what you will and will not receive.
Individual compliance
Reported to you as the referring officer as strictly binary, attended or not attended. No session content, no clinical detail, no risk narrative, protecting the honesty a man brings into the room.
Service evaluation
Anonymised and aggregated across the whole cohort, the 1 to 10 scaling from the start, middle, and end reviews, rolled up to demonstrate the intervention works, without identifying any individual case to your commissioners or partners.
Partner integration
Collaborating with Existing Criminal Justice Service Providers
This pathway is built to sit next to the course providers you already commission, catching the referrals that don’t fit a group curriculum, and taking overflow when your existing capacity is full. It is not a pitch to replace what already works for the majority of your cohort.
For OOCR teams and commissioners
A named, one-to-one option for the cases your current programme structure can’t hold, commissioned as a retainer or a fixed-term pilot, with the reporting framework agreed up front.
For existing course providers
A referral option for the participants who disengage from a group format, present with complexity beyond the curriculum, or need a one-to-one route back into the outcome plan, without your programme absorbing that clinical risk.
For OOCR teams, commissioners, and course providers
Start a conversation.
A short conversation about your force or partnership’s current OOCR pathway, where the gaps sit, and what a commissioned pilot or retainer could look like for you. The service framework gets built around your pathway’s needs, not the other way round. No obligation, and no assumption this fits every case.
Or call 01704 660167. A reply within one working day.