What Does a Probation Officer Do? 1

I find myself once again staring at a blank blog page waiting for inspiration when it occurs to me that perhaps it might be helpful to try and spell out exactly what a probation officer does - or should do in my view. I'm only too well aware that despite having written extensively on the subject for over a year now, it might still be a mystery to some. So this may well be the first of a series that tries to succinctly sum up what is involved. I suppose a bit like a magician revealing how a trick works, but hopefully without the danger of being expelled by the probation equivalent of the Magic Circle. Lets start at the very beginning, as they say.  

Establish a Relationship

When I first mentioned this some months ago I have to say I was genuinely surprised when it clearly raised eyebrows in certain quarters. It served to remind me that what may appear obvious to insiders is not necessarily so elsewhere. Virtually all interactions between officer and client occur in private and normally with only the two people present. I used to feel it was analogous to a doctor/patient relationship, only more so in the past when each officer had the luxury of their own room behind a door with their name on it. My office was one of the last to go over to dreaded 'open plan' and soulless interview rooms, but at least the meeting is still in private. In the past it was not unknown to have comfortable armchairs and sometimes a cup of tea was felt appropriate in order to oil the wheels of a possibly difficult interview. 

The thing about probation is that you may see a person just once, say for the purpose of preparing a Pre Sentence Report for court, or someone else over many, many years if you are supervising a long sentence or they are regular offenders. In each case, in order to obtain information and an understanding of that person, you have to establish a rapport with them, possibly at a very stressful time in their life and when they may feel motivated not to tell you the whole story. Much of what you want them to talk about may often be of the most serious nature and disturbing kind and you have to try and gauge when it's appropriate to push, or when it's appropriate to just listen. 

Sometimes it's necessary to challenge, or to dig or approach things from another angle in order to get as good a picture as possible as to what they did and why they did it. Only then can you try and help that person understand themselves, their motivations and encourage a path towards altered behaviour. It should be pre-eminently obvious that none of this is possible unless there is a positive, caring, professional relationship between officer and client. There has to be respect and trust between these two people in order to lay the foundations for change to be given a chance. Some things are hard enough to tell one person, let alone a succession of people, so continuity is vital. 

Happily, all the research proves that it is this relationship between officer and client that is the single most significant factor in affecting positive outcomes. In many ways I think it's sad to have to say that as to me it's just so damned obvious. It's the reason why I've never really had a serious problem getting clients to keep appointments. I like to believe that they turn up because they want to see me, not just because they have to. Of course the quid pro quo is that I'm there to see them. I cannot say how sad it makes me feel to hear of case after case reported on Prisoners Families Voices of either officers not being in the office or a succession of different duty staff seeing clients week after week. 

I know we all have other commitments and sickness befalls us from time to time, but I think it's more than that. When I joined, I think officers were far more 'proprietorial' about their clients than they are nowadays. There was an assumption that you kept clients for as long as it took, whereas nowadays there's lots of anecdotal evidence that it doesn't matter if they're passed around like parcels. I know I always put great thought and effort into who of my colleagues might be appropriate to stand in for me if I'm to be unavoidably absent. Sadly, I don't see much evidence of this sort of individual arrangement nowadays.

Especially amongst newer colleagues, I sense there is less emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining relationships with individual clients. Instead there seems to be a policy of shared responsibility in what might be regarded as the priority to just make sure clients 'report.' There seems to be a prevalent view that it doesn't matter who they report to. I have no idea why this might be. Possibly it's a symptom of stress or workloads. I can't believe it's a policy being undertaken deliberately to avoid clients as that would surely be unprofessional? But I can see how it might look and feel from a clients point of view.

Possibly as a reflection of younger people's more mobile lifestyles and professional aspirations, there appears much more movement of staff nowadays. This is extremely unsettling to clients, especially long-term prisoners and ironically is completely counter to the aspiration enshrined in the doctrine of 'seamless end-to-end offender management' ushered in with NOMS.  Whatever, I'm clear that the absence of well established relationships between officer and client will prove utterly self-defeating in being able to effect change in people. If nothing else, it simply doesn't satisfy the self-imposed Jim Brown test of 'how would this make me feel?'