About the training

Practitioners and clinicians are often required to assess risk and to formulate plans to reduce or manage the risk of sexual offending that an individual may present. For example, sexual risk assessment may be crucial to pre-sentence reports, parole assessments, community management plans such as MAPPA or community mental health teams, in-patient services managing restricted patients, tribunal reports – the list is endless!

This one-day training event focuses on the Structured Assessment of Protective Factors (SAPROF; de Vries Robbe et al., 2015). The SAPROF is a protective factors assessment tool that is designed to be used alongside structured professional judgement violence risk assessment tools e.g. HCR-20v3, RSVP/SVR-20v2, SARAv3. The tool guides the assessor in considering information, identifying protective factors that are present and relevant and considering areas where the protective factors require development. It has been argued in the literature that a balanced risk assessment gives attention to risk and protective factors, and in our experience the assessment of protective factors can be motivational and engaging as part of formulation work with patients.

Dr Ruth Tully is an author-approved trainer of SAPROF, which also ensures that training content is in line with the authors' intent for the tool.

As a guide the training will cover the following:

• Introduction to protective factors
• SAPROF development
• SAPROF coding
• Practice case
• Discussion of additional SAPROF manuals e.g. sex offender and youth version
• SAPROF research results

The primary aim of the SAPROF workshop is to ensure that delegates feel confident when assessing clients using the SAPROF. A certificate will be provided for evidence of attendance at this workshop, which may contribute to your continuing professional development (CPD).

Who should attend this workshop?

This workshop is designed for professionals (or in-training professionals) who may work with people at risk of violence, or are likely to do so in the future.

This is likely to include psychologists, psychiatrists, Offender Managers/Probation Officers, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, forensic speech and language therapists, Police or Prison Officers, Panel members, other types of therapist, and those in professional training in these roles.

If you are unsure if this workshop is appropriate for your profession then please get in touch with us.

About the trainer

The primary trainer for this event is Dr Ruth Tully. Ruth is a HCPC Registered and BPS Chartered Forensic Psychologist. Ruth is Clinical Director at Tully Forensic Psychology Ltd, and has been assessing the risk of sexual and violent offenders for a number of years both as an individual professional and as part of multi-disciplinary teams. She has published in peer-reviewed journals in the area of sex offender risk assessment, most notably a systematic review on this topic alongside empirical research, and she is an invited speaker at national and international conferences on this topic. Ruth is actively involved in the risk assessment, management and treatment of sexual offenders both as a practitioner and consultant to services. Ruth has extensive experience working with sex offenders in prisons, hospitals and the community and with working with complex offenders e.g. those with personality disorder, learning disability, multiple paraphilias, or mental illness. Ruth is an experienced trainer and has delivered this event to a range of professionals over the last few years.