WA Corrective Services has announced that a $2.4 million dedicated mental health unit is to be created at Bandyup Women’s Prison.
The 32-bed unit will provide more intensive support than is available in the mainstream prison and will assist to transition prisoners to either the mainstream prison or to the community using trauma-informed and recovery-focused programs and care plans.
It will be the first time the prison has had a dedicated mental health unit in its 50-year history.
Minister for Corrective Services, Francis Logan said the initiative followed the highly successful introduction of the Wandoo Rehabilitation Prison for women, which had helped more than 100 women with their drug addiction in the past two years.
“There has also been a 30 per cent increase in the number of full-time equivalents for psychological health services, which includes psychologists and social workers across the custodial estate,” Mr Logan said.
“The infrastructure upgrades to create the Bandyup mental health unit will be completed in two stages with the High Dependency Area expected to be complete by late January 2021 and the remaining works completed in early April 2021.”
He said it had been a long road in reforming the State’s corrective services and building the necessary infrastructure to address the inherited over-crowding crisis.
“We are now also better able to manage the State’s female prison population after the return of Melaleuca Prison to public hands, which has created more opportunities to move female prisoners to facilities that can better meet their needs,” Mr Logan said.
“This new 32-bed mental health unit at Bandyup will provide therapeutic and counselling support for prisoners with mental illness that cannot be adequately addressed in the mainstream population.”
