PDF - Opioid Dependence Treatment: Pioneering Transformative Change

PDF The Voice of Adults at Risk of Harm on Probation

User Voice was commissioned by HM Inspectorate of Probation to conduct a research consultation on the Voice of Adults at Risk of Harm on Probation. Published November 2025.

Lived Experience In Action: Commissioning Restorative Justice Services

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) commissioned User Voice to set up a lived experience commissioning panel to help design the service specification and evaluate bids for a new restorative justice service across West Yorkshire.

Peer Commissioning is a really inclusive and innovative way of including all stakeholders in the design and implementation of services, and we are really proud to share how we did this work together, along with our recommendations.

The Voice of Young People - Out of Court Disposals

We are delighted to have been commissioned by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation on this thematic inspection of the delivery of unpaid work to capture the voice of people with experience of unpaid work.

From our work across the country in undertaking this thematic consultation, we are pleased to report that the majority of those on unpaid work found it an overall positive experience with 7 in 10 people responding positively when reporting on their experiences.

For this consultation we spoke to young adults about their experiences on probation. Through this dialogue we hope to provide insights that can better support their rehabilitation.

This consultation brings forward the voices of women on probation. We hope that by better understanding of the current experience of women on probation, we can provide better support to aid their rehabilitation, and increase desistance.

This report gives people on IPP the opportunity to share what is like to live on an indefinite sentence.

Through our engagement, User Voice found individuals languishing on sentences, their mental health deteriorating with little obvious hope of getting their lives back on track. There is an almost universal view that IPP sentences are unfair, have been misused and are counter to any form of natural justice.

Funded by the NHS, the report shines a light on the experience of those who suffer from conditions such as ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, autism, acquired brain injury (ABI), and dyslexia in UK prison estates.

For this study, to provide as holistic a picture as possible, User Voice spoke to service users about their lives before they were involved in the criminal justice system. User Voice interviewed 104 service users across 11 prisons nationwide between September 2022 and February 2023. All interviewed or surveyed service users were either diagnosed or self-diagnosed as neurodivergent.

We found that over half of the service users had experienced abuse in their early life while one third of the service users had experience of care before going into the criminal justice system. A common theme we heard was that people had been told all their lives that they were bad, rather than in need of help; approximately 71% of men talked about being labelled ‘bad,’ ’naughty’ or ‘thick’ at school and this label had followed them through their adult lives.