Community Re-Entry Services Team (CREST)
With the wellbeing of clients, their families, and the community at the forefront, CREST engages its network and leans on ACSO’s roots to support clients to make meaningful change.
The CREST program was established in 2016 by ACSO in partnership with Queensland Corrective Services to support people coming out of custody across Southeast Queensland (SEQ). The program builds upon ACSO’s four decades of collaborative and comprehensive services across Australia, proudly working to break the cycle of people re-entering the prison system by providing access to support, treatment, connection, and resources in the community.
On a day-to-day basis, the CREST team engage with people in custody and supports them on the day of their release, followed by continued outreach support to promote positive behaviour change. This enables clients to set and achieve realistic and individualised goals, participate in treatment programs, transition to independent living, and ultimately live meaningful, fulfilling, and offence free lives.
“It’s thanks to CREST that I can sleep easy at night knowing my brother has support nearby. You (ACSO CREST Team) have made a stressful day much easier and less anxiety-provoking for both me and my brother (client). Without CREST I would have to sell my house and move closer to Brisbane to support my brother’s reintegration”
— Family member
Support across client journeys
CREST delivers accessible, evidence-based support both in prison and in the community, which clients engage with on a voluntary basis. These services are divided into three components:
- In-prison information and referral services, which are available to all individuals within the prisons and provide support with accommodation, employment, education, health, and community reintegration.
- The Parole Support Service is designed for clients on parole who may be at risk of experiencing crisis and require extra support. This is an intensive five-day service which aims to connect the client with the required supports to help stabilise them in the community.
- The Post Release Managed Stream commences with clients in prison and continues in the community up to twelve weeks after they are released. Clients are assigned to a forensic case worker to support them with creating a re-entry plan, which contains all the client’s self-identified reintegration goals and needs. The CREST re-entry plan underpins the support provided to a CREST client and guides the client’s journey.
The CREST team are proactive and purposeful in the way they engage with clients, with a focus on regular contact, clear boundaries, safety, and empowerment. By seamlessly expanding access to social services, CREST work to promote positive behaviour change and ultimately keep its clients out of custody.
Collaborating with other services
CREST is an excellent example of how ACSO has been able to leverage our strong collaborative partnerships approach to sustainably expand our services. The program required the development of effective and positive relationships with the police, court systems, and many areas of Queensland Corrective Services. In CREST’s eight years of operation, the team have demonstrated their capability and commitment to collaboration by maintaining co-locations with six correctional centres and seventeen probation and parole offices across SEQ.
CREST has long standing partnerships with many service providers across SEQ, ensuring that there are streamlined referral pathways for clients to access the supports required to address their individual circumstances. CREST’s collaboration with other services, particularly in the housing space, enables them to source accommodation for clients to allow them to be released from prison. Without CREST’s support in this space, some clients would never be released into the community.
“I don’t take lightly the help/services rendered by this amazing team, who had quite a bit of phone calling and paper juggling magic to perform… They did an outstanding job with not one complaint, when they could have been going home. It is inconveniences like this to your staff, that actually have life changing impact for prisoners and their families. I am VERY GRATEFUL for all they have done.”
— Correction Centre staff member
Impactful program outcomes
The outstanding success of CREST is attributable to the exceptional efforts of the team. An evaluation of the program in 2023 measured the efficacy of CREST’s interventions on client outcomes.
Notably, access to safe and stable housing was seen to increase by 21%, and clients reported their ability to stop themselves from engaging in behaviours that get them in trouble with the law as 9% better than before they had engaged with CREST.
Clients have also reported positive firsthand experiences with the program. In relation to the provision of CREST services broadly, one client shared feedback that CREST is “Well organised, didn’t slip through the cracks, (and) found a way to help regardless of issue.”
Another client shared an experience with CREST in which their cultural safety was respected and upheld, a principle which is a vital component of all ACSO services. “When (CREST employee) called me up, he let a couple of the brothers come with me so I felt more comfortable than one on one, and they helped me know what them papers were all about.”
Sustainable growth
As a testament to the scalability of ACSO’s wealth of knowledge and sophisticated service models, CREST is just one of the fourteen new reintegration services ACSO has piloted across Australia since 2012. Utilising a nuanced understanding of supporting people with complex needs, CREST has been efficient and cost-effective in streamlining social support networks across SEQ to safely and successfully reconnect people with their communities after time in custody. Over the last few years, CREST has expanded even further to support individuals with late prison release times.
Looking ahead, ACSO hope to take CREST’s impact even further. We have recently submitted a tender which if successful, will expand CREST’s services from SEQ to include the entire state. ACSO hope to leverage our scalability, expertise, strong relationships, and the achievements of the CREST program thus far to support even more clients to thrive in their communities.