The Women’s Risk Needs Assessment (WRNA) was designed with a focus on the specific challenges and experiences of women in incarceration. It represents the only suite of peer-reviewed risk/need instruments designed by and for system-impacted women. The WRNA helps staff — and the women they supervise — identify women’s criminogenic needs while better understanding their strengths. The instrument facilitates case planning to appropriate gender-responsive programs to address women’s specific needs. This is crucial to improving the lives of women and their families.
Benefits of implementing a gender-specific assessment include:
- Tailored, individualized interventions: Understanding and addressing the unique risks and needs of justice-involved women can lead to greater success of rehabilitation efforts. Tailoring interventions based on this understanding can address the underlying causes of criminal behavior.
- Strengths identification: WRNA instruments can help identify justice-involved women’s unique strengths. These strengths can be built into rehabilitation and reentry planning.
- Reduced recidivism: Addressing these underlying causes of criminal behavior — as well as identifying strengths — can help create pathways to a responsible, fulfilling life after release.
- Enhanced relationships: This assessment can build trust and understanding between staff and justice-involved women. This can reduce misconduct, decrease staff burnout and improve the overall well-being of staff and justice-involved women.
- Successful community reintegration: Addressing gender-specific challenges in housing, employment, family reunification, support networks and others can facilitate successful community reintegration.
The domains in this assessment include:
| Antisocial attitudes | Housing safety | Substance abuse |
| Criminal history | Anger / hostility | Gambling |
| Educational needs | History of mental illness | Family conflict / relationship difficulties |
| Employment | Child abuse / PTSD | Parental stress |
| Financial | Adult / physical abuse / sexual abuse | Antisocial / friends |
The Change Companies’ WRNA Collection includes gender-responsive curriculum interventions that directly align with the WRNA domains. Endorsed by Dr. Emily Salisbury, one of the WRNA’s original creators, this collection can help professionals collaboratively develop comprehensive, individualized service plans that effectively address the unique needs of the women they serve.
The WRNA Collection Journals include:
Click to explore each Journal in detail.
These Journals provide space for justice-involved women to reflect on their paths forward, their challenges and how they can overcome them to reach their goals. Implementing these Journals into your programs within the justice system can help clarify rehabilitation needs, promote behavior change and lead women to successful outcomes. These Journals can be a direct representation of women’s progress. This helps staff regularly assess women’s risks and needs, and interventions can be adjusted as necessary.
Each Journal in this collection has an associated Facilitator Guide. These Guides take the guesswork out of facilitating the materials, with recommended activities, discussion questions, out-of-session assignments and skill practice.
Individuals who purchase the WRNA collection will also receive a comprehensive session planning guide for low and high intensity multi-session interventions for each domain.