Chapter 11 Scenarios

11.1 Psychometric consultancy at HMP Birley

11.1.1 The Situation

You are tasked as a psychometrics consultant to develop a free-to-use screening tool to identify individuals who may benefit from enrolment on a group rehabilitation programme that has been designed for people with neurodiverse traits at HMP Birley.

The governor at HMP Birley, a category C male prison, wants to prioritise inmates who will most likely benefit from the programme. Some of the inmates are known to have neurodiverse conditions and will be automatically enrolled. However, the governor is mindful that these conditions are underdiagnosed and wants to identify undiagnosed inmates who show neurodiverse traits.

The governor has asked you to produce a tool that:

can be administered by a psychology graduate,
can be administered on paper or on a device such as a computer or tablet,
is free to use but is consistent with gold-standard measures,
is self-contained (i.e. no additional materials are required for the tool to be administered, interpreted, and reported),
provides a report of the limitations of the tool to inform future development of the scheme.

To assist in your task, you have been provided with a letter from the prison governor, Darren Johnson, providing more detail about HMP Birley and its rehabilitation programme. Please familiarise yourself with the assignment brief and assignment video presentation on the Moodle page for more information about the requirements of the report.

11.1.2 Govenors’s Letter

RE: Commission for a pilot screening tool

Dear Psychologist,

Your company has previously helped us identify issues with attendance to our group rehabilitation programme and we are currently implementing some of the suggestions.

You may be aware that we deliver a group rehabilitation programme to eight men for a minimum of six hours a week over six weeks, and that we are trying to reduce non-attendance, which is both costly and disruptive.

The men on B Wing have a history of violent and/or acquisitive offences and are diverse in terms of their life experiences, offending, abilities, and other characteristics. For instance, some of the men show signs of mild to moderate intellectual or learning impairment. In addition, some of the men are neurodivergent, such as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

We now have a better understanding of why some men do not attend, and our focus has shifted to ensuring that the men at HMP Birley receive appropriate support with preparing for release and reducing their risk of reoffending. I have discussed this with Dr Crane, our forensic psychologist, and we have decided to pilot an adapted programme that is tailored towards the strengths and challenges experienced by the neurodiverse men on B Wing.

To aid selection for enrolment I would like to commission you to produce a short, free-to-use screening tool that can be administered by our intervention facilitators rather than their senior colleagues. The tool should identify men who are most likely to benefit from a group rehabilitation programme that targets neurodiverse traits.

There are several men on B Wing who have clinical diagnoses of conditions such as ADHD or Autism. However, I understand that such conditions often remain undiagnosed and so we need the tool to identify individuals on B Wing who have higher than average neurodiverse traits and are either undiagnosed, or fall marginally below clinical criteria for diagnosis.

The men in HMP Birley have limited access to digital technology, so the tool needs to be completed either verbally or on paper. Our staff are also not permitted to bring devices into the prison, and so the tool will need to have an accompanying manual containing all information for delivering, scoring, and interpreting the scores.

Final decisions about suitability for enrolment will be made by panel members, many of whom (including myself) are unfamiliar with psychology and so any reports that are produced need to be jargon-free. The tool will be administered by junior psychologists who, Dr Crane informs me, have yet to complete the BPS Test User qualification, so it is essential that you provide a sample report for them to follow.

Finally, I would like you to prepare a separate document that highlights the limitations of the tool and some suggestions for improvements should the pilot be successful and rolled out to the wider prison population.

Your colleague informs me that they have already identified a possible set of tests. Please can you ensure that there are no more than four measures in the final version; that it does not exceed 3000 words; and that it is delivered no later than 19th May 2026 (unless there are mitigating factors). We are keen to work with you to help plan a way forward so that we can make our programmes more efficient.

Kind regards, Darren Johnson

11.2 Psychometric consultancy at Birley House

11.2.1 The Situation

You have been approached by the manager of the community forensic service, Birley House, in the capacity of psychometrics consultant.

They have asked you to develop a free-to-use tool to help screen the suitability of potential volunteers facilitators for the group treatment programme.

The manager of Birley House typically receives hundreds of applications for each post and would like to reduce the administrative burden by identifying applicants with personality profiles that best suit the role.

The manager of Birley House is concerned with the service users’ attendance and engagement in the group treatment programme and has also noticed increased levels of staff sickness and turnover.

The manager has asked you, as a consultant, to produce a tool that:

Can be administered online,
provides sufficient information to screen applicants’ suitability for the role,
can be reported by psychology graduates,
is free to use but consistent with gold-standard measures,
is self-contained so that no additional information is required for it to be administered, interpreted, and reported,
provides a report of the limitations of the tool to inform future development of the scheme.

To assist in your task, you have been provided with a letter from the manager, Nicole Burns, providing more detail about Birley House and the programme which you should carefully consider in writing your report.

11.2.2 Letter from the Manager

RE: Screening assessment pilot

Dear Psychologist,

The report that your colleague provided on the group treatment programme was very helpful, and we have started implementing some of the suggestions.

As you may already know, we are a service that provides offence-focused group work for women. These women are either on licence or are serving a community sentence. The women currently travel from the community to Birley House to receive services.

The programme is delivered to six women three times a week over two months. Our next task is finding suitable individuals to facilitate the programme. Each session is led by a member of staff, but we also offer volunteer facilitator opportunities to students from three local universities. These roles are becoming increasingly popular and this has led to the shortlisting of potential volunteers becoming unmanageable. We would like to implement an online screening tool to aid with the shortlisting by identifying the applicants with the most appropriate traits for the role.

I would like to commission you to produce a short, free-to-use screening tool that can be administered online and from which a report describing the applicant’s profile can be produced by our junior staff rather than their senior colleagues.

The women that the volunteer facilitators will be working with have all been imprisoned at some point in HMP Fosby, a female prison establishment. Their offences are mainly acquisitive in nature (such as theft, robbery or shoplifting), although some of the women have committed violent offences as well.

The background of our service users is quite mixed, but they typically present with a history of trauma, such as child sexual abuse, and are (or were) in volatile relationships with partners. Some of the women have a diagnosis of mild personality disorder with a borderline pattern qualifier, and some show intellectual or learning impairment.

Given the vulnerability of the women who enrol on our programme, the tool needs to screen for people with personality profiles that will help them contribute towards a supportive, empathetic, and consistent environment.

Our Forensic Psychologist colleague suggests that we screen out anybody whose scores suggest that they are below average for an indicator. We would also like the selection panel to be provided with personalised, non-technical profile reports for anyone who is interviewed. I am informed that although many of our junior staff are psychology graduates, they do not have the BPS Test User qualifications, and have minimal experience in providing individual feedback. As such, it is essential that you provide a sample report for them to use as a template.

We are keen to work with you to plan a way forward so that we can make our selection procedures more efficient.

Kind regards,

Ms Nicole Burns Manager Birley House