Good Lives Model

Domain II · Behavioural & cognitive · Tony Ward, Gannon, Mann · 2000 · New Zealand

What it is

The Good Lives Model (GLM) is a rehabilitation framework, not a stand-alone therapy or manual. Tony Ward developed it in New Zealand in the early 2000s, with Gannon, Mann, Yates, Willis and Prescott. It sits on top of RNR-consistent cognitive-behavioural treatment and reshapes its aims, assessment,…

Format

• What the GLM is. It is a framework applied within individual or group treatment, which can be in prison, community probation, forensic mental health or youth services. The developers' clinical writing centres on sexual offending, but they also apply it to general and violent offending and to…
• Community: Being Part of a Group

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: the GLM as integrated with RNR, CBT and the Self-Regulation Model–Revised (SRM-R) for sexual offending, set out in Willis, Yates, Gannon & Ward (2013) and Yates, Prescott & Ward (2010). Session sequencing is updated from Ward, Willis, Prescott et al. (2025, draft Chapter 4). The adolescent G-MAP adaptation (GLM-A; Print, 2013) is noted where it differs.
• The Good Lives Model (GLM) is a rehabilitation framework, not a stand-alone therapy or manual. Tony Ward developed it in New Zealand in the early 2000s, with Gannon, Mann, Yates, Willis and Prescott. It sits on top of RNR-consistent cognitive-behavioural treatment and reshapes its aims, assessment, content and delivery. The developers explicitly reject treating it as a manualised protocol or certifying programmes as…
• Change comes from helping the person build the internal capacities (skills, beliefs, emotion regulation) and external conditions (opportunities, supports, resources) needed to pursue their most valued goods in ways incompatible with offending. This is the Good Lives Plan (GLP), which replaces the relapse-prevention plan.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• The claim that "we already do this".
• Pathway labels used as fixed categories.
• Check-ins turning into incident reports only.
• Assessment collapsing into a list of deficits.
• A single identity that recreates a scope flaw.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.