Prison psychology services

The Top End Primary Health Care (PHC) psychologist provides services to prisoners in the Darwin Correctional Centre.

They may see them for several concerns including:

• trouble sleeping
• feeling anxious or sad
• dealing with difficult experiences
• coping with loss
• personality issues.

What services they don't provide

The psychologist operates in line with the principles of trauma informed care. But they cannot provide trauma-specific interventions such as:

• cognitive processing therapy
• eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing
• prolonged exposure therapy.

This is due to the associated risks with the processing of trauma within the prison environment.

They also cannot assist with:

• reports for court or parole hearings
• assessing parental ability
• diagnosing mental health or personality disorders
• security classification
• providing advice or opinion to legal teams or services
• offence specific treatment.

Accessing services

With the consent of the prisoner, anyone can make a referral to the PHC psychologist.

There are some circumstances where they may not be able to accept your referral.

For more information about their exclusion criteria, contact the service.

What to include in referral

When making a referral, you should include:

• why you would like the prisoner to be seen
• any symptoms they are having, including the severity and level of distress
• any relevant history, past reports or treatment eg. history of trauma, alcohol and drug use, and mental health
• other identified risks such as:
  • young adult offender
  • in prison for first time
  • displaying out of character behaviour
  • had a recent prison incident
  • suffering from grief or loss
  • limited support
  • cultural concerns.

Contact

For more information, call the Darwin Correctional Centre on 08 8901 4141.