Perceptions of social climate and their influence on aggression in forensic Intellectual Developmental Disability (IDD) services

Social climate is defined as a set of long-standing features which impact upon the people within the environment, such as the restrictions of the setting and staff-patient relationships. Chapter 1 introduces the social climate research and highlights gaps in the literature. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of the literature of social climate in forensic mental health services and the links to aggression. Chapter 3 critiques the Essen Climate Evaluation Schema (EssenCES; Schalast, Redies, Collins, Stacey, & Howells, 2008), a social climate measure commonly-used in the United Kingdom. Chapter 4 examines the perceptions of social climate among offenders with Intellectual Developmental Disabilities (IDD) using the EssenCES, and the views of staff working with them via focus groups together with using an adapted version of the Attitudes To Prisoners scale (ATP; Melvin, Gramling, & Gardner, 1985). Whilst no significant relationships were found between patient and staff questionnaire ratings and the frequency of incidents, the staff focus groups highlighted that factors such as inadequate staff training, inconsistent working practices, and patients being inappropriately placed in certain environments had an impact upon patient behaviours. Chapter 5 draws together the findings from the previous chapters and implications for research and practice are discussed