Gender Responsive Programming Towards the Promotion of Women’s Mental Well-being

Abstract

The world of health policy and public health considers the health of women an important topic of focus, and in most cases links the well-being of women to that of children and the family, and, legitimately, to the health of society overall. Moreover over the emphasis is more given to maternal and child health. This perspective is true and well-founded given that women's health is well documented to promotion of the general health of family and everyone in society. The researcher, however notes the otherwise limitation in promoting the general wellbeing of women across the divides in the society. Women offenders fall among the special population groups in our society with dire need for attention towards their overall well-being. Unfortunately, very few studies have focused on who they are and reasons for their incarceration. In fact, the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model of offender rehabilitation [1] that has dominated rehabilitation programs globally in the last two decades provides the impression that reasons for criminality in women offenders are similar to those of their male counterparts, but the limited studies on incarceration of women has noted the assumption as erroneous. Thus, globally, the focus of rehabilitation programs for women offenders has often mirrored that of male offenders [2,3].