Making use of participatory action research to integrate neuropsychology, community psychology and criminology in rehabilitation interventions

Abstract

This thesis reports on the development, application and testing of a rehabilitation model for carceral settings. The study attempted to integrate evidence-based principles from criminology, community psychology, and neuropsychology in a holistic, continuous and multi-disciplinary project. A Concurrent Transformative approach was used. This involved participatory action research (PAR), not only as a research method, but as key element of the model and as the intervention to be studied. Cell monitors were invited to participate in an action research project which included exemplary representatives from the community. The project spanned a year and a half. This included a five-month period of intense practising of executive functions and Ubuntu ethics education and eight months of weekly meetings focusing on the PAR process. A variety of qualitative methods and quantitative pre and post measurements were applied to explore the impact of the intervention. Significant changes were found in participants’ reported abilities to relax and their executive performance. These findings can be attributed to the intervention combining mindfulness and ethics education with real-life opportunities for executive functioning practice. This is in line with Triune Ethics Theory, which postulates that ethical selves and communities emerge not from top-down moral education but from real-life experiences that shape brain systems. The quantitative results relating to the impact of the intervention are presented against the backdrop of a qualitative ‘landscape of results’ relating to the process and experience of what transpired. Bakhtinian dialogism is drawn on to allow different angles, levels and voices to emerge. These qualitative findings unpack: the various ‘products’ that emerged from the real-life project, the nature of the PAR process, the role of ethics as a spontaneous outcome of the process, and an overview of rehabilitation-related themes that mattered to participants. From these findings a rehabilitation model was developed that draws on the experiences and insights of incarcerated participants. This model focusses on enabling holistic change in the context of a ‘real-life’ project as a basis, that works with two mechanisms: ethics and participation. It incorporates the following elements: social inclusion, purpose, awareness and agency. The integrated model is described in terms of its components, their scientific evidence, their application in the study and recommendations for DCS and future studies. The thesis concludes that sustainable change is possible if society is included with incarceration so that rehabilitation can occur reciprocally. In this way the impacts of both excluding and being-excluded can be addressed.