This is relevant to prison officers, because prisoners with head injury are more likely to have more recorded incidents in prison and difficulties in settling into prison life and are more likely to reoffend. However no previous studies have looked at the training needs of prison officers with respect to head injury. This paper reports the results of a survey of prison officers in two prisons in Scotland. It looks at past training, experience and knowledge about head injury and discusses the implications for training and links this to the management of prisoners.
Almost half of the prison officers surveyed indicated that they had worked with people with head injury in prisons, but two thirds reported that they did not have sufficient knowledge or training about head injury. Specific areas where knowledge could be improved were related to insight, emotion, cognition and behaviour after head injury. In addition, two scenarios where management and care issues are likely to arise are outlined and discussed, as indicators of the need for staff to have an understanding about head injury.
Training on the effects of recent and historical head injury is recommended for prison officers. Training of this kind is currently being developed in collaboration between the University of Glasgow and the Scottish Prison Service and NHS Education Scotland.
