Latest From Napo 209

I notice the latest Napo magazine was published online yesterday and I've selected the General Secretary's message, together with the results of the training survey. Interestingly, the latter seems to bear out messages that have been consistently voiced on here over many months.  

Ian Lawrence Writes

At the time of writing we are just ending week three since the C-19 Social Distancing policy was announced by Government. Napo members can be proud of the vital contribution they have made in maintaining vital public services across all of the 23 employers where we are represented during what is an unprecedented emergency. 

The nature of the C19 Pandemic means that the death in service of employees in any of these areas will understandably cause consternation amongst their immediate colleagues, along with the profound sense of loss and condolences that I know will be shared by all of our members. The announcement of four such losses in just over a 7 day period in late March/early April brings the scale of the danger that we are all facing into very sharp focus.

Our families and communities across the UK are showing astonishing unity in the national campaign to defeat this brutal foe. It’s also the case that some of our members have volunteered to support the NHS or are offering help to vulnerable people in their locality. It’s just as I would have expected.

Whilst it’s welcome to see the Government, the CBI and the TUC working together, there will be many of our members who hold strong views about the adequacy and timing of certain aspects of the Governments response to the impending threat back at the turn of the year. Over these last few weeks the failure to have a testing regime in place for essential international travel has been laid bare when examining the startling infection and subsequent death rates, and the decision to allow the Cheltenham Racing Festival to go ahead now looks just plain stupid. Moreover, the pitiful stories of workers struggling to secure adequate Personal Protection Equipment to care for people in Hospitals and Care Homes mean that serious questions need answering. 

Next week sees the first remotely run meeting of the TUC, and as a member of the General Council I will be adding our tribute to the astonishing bravery of all NHS workers and other employees in a range of professions who have been providing essential services in the midst of the crisis.

I will be reminding the TUC that our members in Probation (NPS and CRC) Cafcass and PB Northern Ireland, are also in that category. Thats why the Napo Officers and the HQ team have been focussing our efforts to do all that we can to help ensure that our members are afforded the necessary social distancing protections, equipment and support from your employers that you rightly demand. We are listening carefully to what you are telling us and we are keeping members up to date on what Napo is doing and what is happening across Probation and Family Courts with almost daily bulletins. We will continue to do so and members are also directed to the dedicated webpage https://www.napo.org.uk/covid-19- emergency to find out more. 

At Napo HQ itself, we are observing PHE guidelines with regard to our own staff and we are still very much there for members – contact us at info@napo. org.uk or leave a message on the voice mail. Both these points of contact are being monitored continually during the day and we will get back to members as quickly as we can. 

Hopefully it will not be too long before we some normality restored to the way in which we live and work. Meanwhile, I wanted to convey my personal best wishes to all of our members and your loved ones in these testing times.

Ian Lawrence

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HUGE RESPONSE TO TRAINING SURVEY

Earlier this year Napo launched a training survey on behalf of the Training and Professional Committee. After over 200 responses Tania Bassett National Official has brought together the findings and the key themes that came out of the responses. Napo will be sharing these findings with HMPPS training to help influence training going forward for all grades of staff. 

General training and refreshers 

It is quite clear from the survey that training arrangements in the NPS and CRCs vary significantly with the majority of CRCs offering very little training to staff. Of concern one of the key issues raised by CRC members is the lack of safeguarding training. A critical subject for effective public protection, an area that many CRCs have been criticised for in HMIP reports. This was also a key area in Wales following transition and required large numbers of staff to be trained up once thy moved to the NPS. Napo will be putting pressure on CRCs to ensure that all staff are up to date with safeguarding training as a matter of urgency. 

A common theme amongst both NPS and CRC members was how training is delivered. 90% respondents said that they didn’t like online training. “It is really isolating. I would prefer training with my peers so you can discuss the issues and how it affects practice”.

Many members concurred with this view saying they would much prefer classroom based training. This enables you to ask questions of the trainer, clarify understanding and allow open discussion with colleagues. This is especially important for less experienced staff who still need to bed in the learning into their practice and who can learn a great deal from more experienced colleagues. 

Some grades such as Band 2 said they had received no training at all in the last 12 months. This was true of NPS and CRC staff in that grade. Given that a Vocational Qualifcation had been developed for administrators it is disappointing that this has not been rolled out on a regular basis. 

PQiP 

Napo received overwhelming feedback that PQiP is not fit for purpose and is too short to be comprehensive enough. Napo has already been made aware that PQiP learners and newly qualified staff do not feel confident or qualified enough to carry out the role. This is acute in the NPS where newly qualified offices are going straight into a full caseload of high and very high risk cases. PQiP trainers who responded to the survey agreed with these comments which is very worrying going forward. This is especially concerning given staff are now working at home and do not have the benefit of their experienced colleagues. With just one day of training on working with people who commit sexual offences many members have raised concerns that this is leaving staff, clients and the public at risk. Combined with an apparent lack of risk management this could seriously undermine public protection and confidence in probation. 

Again the issue of distance online learning came under criticism with a lack of university time negatively impacting on learners. It seems very clear that HMPPS need to do a complete review of the PQiP training and Napo will urge them to take these findings into consideration. One trainer told Napo that the actual training manual is now out of date. 

For some learners in the CRC we are seeing a real disconnect to how the training should be delivered and the reality. Lack of access to NPS placements and in some cases no mentoring or support will leave CRC learners at a real disadvantage. Retention will be very difficult in these areas if members feel they have been left to their own devises. Members are acutely aware of the risk of SFOs and their own vulnerability as well. 

OASys 

Since its introduction Napo members have been critical of OASys as a none user friendly and a clunky assessment. It wasn’t a surprise then to see this assessment tool come under fire in the survey. Many respondents felt that it was out of date as an assessment tool and just too long winded and repetitive. However, it was great to get some constructive feedback. Many members feel that the tool could be more useful if practitioners could update a section without having to update the whole document. This has become more of an issue since staff began working from home and an instruction was issued to review all OASys assessments. Napo agrees with members that this could easily be done if only one section could be updated to reflect the crisis rather than the entire assessment. Probation needs to modernise and a full review and investment in OASys could be a really positive move for practitioners. 

On behalf of the Training and Professional Committee Tania Bassett, National Official, and Keith Stokeld, National Vice Chair will take up these issues directly with HMPPS. The committee wants to thank members for taking time to complete the survey and we will keep you up to date on our progress.