Women’s Pathway Group ‘Fighting Fire with Fire’ Learning Event | News

North London Forensic Collaborative (NLFC) Women’s Pathway Group held their annual learning event on Wednesday 3 July at the Holiday Inn Camden Lock, London, which focused on arson presentation in women. 

Staff from across the provider collaborative came together to listen to presentations on the clinical characteristics of fire-setters versus non fire fire-setters, the theory of adult fire-setting, challenges colleagues experience in the discharge planning process of patients presenting with fire-setting behaviour and also consider whether treatment for fire-setting is taken seriously enough.

Theresa Gannon, Professor of Forensic Psychology and Director of the Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology (University of Kent) from Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust joined the event and delivered an insightful talk on the clinical needs of females who set deliberate fires. The presentation demonstrated how female fire-setters have unique clinical needs, which differs to other females who offend, who require specialist assessment, treatment and support, which must be psychological and in partnership with the fire rescue service.

Professor Theresa Gannon said, “This learning event really got to grips with some of the issues that both professionals and patients face in the area of deliberate fire-setting. It was fantastic to hear so many multidisciplinary professionals coming together to discuss this complex topic and problem solve particularly challenging problems relating to treatment, housing, and discharge. Women so often fail to feature in research on deliberate fire-setting but at this event they were centre stage.”