Our People

Victoria has over 20 years  experience working in the Criminal Justice sector in both custodial and community settings. She began her career working with juvenile and young offenders, before moving to work with adult offenders. Victoria specialised in the development and delivery of cognitive behavioural interventions and is an accredited and experienced facilitator of national Correctional Services Approved Programmes. Victoria was involved in the development of an innovative multi-agency, gender-specific approach to working with women offenders and has extensive experience of supporting the development and management of a range of restorative practice and trauma-informed interventions. Victoria co-ordinated a Restorative Practice pilot project with Approved Premises operated by the National Probation Service; and a Domestic Abuse Project in partnership with Victim Support, commissioned by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cumbria.

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Victoria provides training and support for project staff; and leads Magistra’s work in engaging service users to co-develop innovative interventions.

Margaret Adams has over thirty years experience of working in the criminal and social justice sectors. As a passionate social scientist Margaret has honed her skills as a qualified Social Worker, Probation Officer, Family and Community Mediator, Prison Governor, and Senior Leader.

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Her career has been characterised by high profile, complex and transformative roles. As a Probation Officer she was at the forefront of the effective practice movement whilst managing a Probation Centre at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire. Her career with the Probation Service was crowned with a National Butler Trust Group Award for the development of the first Prison Voluntary Testing Unit Treatment Programme.

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Margaret then joined the Prison Service as a Direct Entry Governor and was soon engaged in leading the transformation of the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system, which manages the most dangerous, difficult and disruptive prisoners in England and Wales. Having developed a new staff selection, training and support system; and introduced an innovative care and management system, psychiatric collaborative and violence reduction programme, incidents of violence and disruption reduced by 90%, enabling prisoners who had been ‘stuck’ in the CSC system to progress either to Special High Security Hospitals or back into mainstream prisons.

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This transformation resulted in a reduction of prisoners held in ‘extreme custody’, the closure of one unit and significant savings to the High Security Prison Estate….. and another National Butler Trust Award for her team for “Extraordinary work done extraordinarily well!”

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Following this success Margaret went on to successfully Direct the National Offender Management Pathfinder, developing and implementing the new National Offender Management model in prisons and probation services following the creation of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in 2003. Her passion for integrated working led her to take a Senior Leadership role as Regional Head of Public Protection and Reducing Reoffending, which involved leading a team of regional specialist managers, numerous board memberships, and chairing regional multi-agency meetings.

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Through the creation of MAGISTRA Ltd, Margaret has provided leadership to numerous teams of consultants and subject matter experts to deliver large transformational programmes; and helped small charities and social enterprises to grow and thrive as service providers in the social and criminal justice sectors.