Two emails a day apart and for me they rather neatly highlight the fundamental problem. To many of us, possibly an ever-diminishing band of contrarians, 'probation' is quite obviously being strangled by the ever-tightening grip of HMPPS and their typical civil service command and control mind set.
How long can we wait for the penny to drop? How long before somebody is prepared to put their neck on the line and confirm the bloody obvious? This forced marriage with a uniformed service, embracing as it does an entirely different culture and modus operandi has been a disaster for our professional ethos, distinctive identity and ability to practice effectively. Probation simply cannot be practiced as a civil servant under HMPPS diktat!
I find it so unfair and dispiriting, especially for prospective new recruits, that the MoJ/HMPPS management and publicity machine continue to disseminate the warm and upbeat image of a career full of promise, but one that is so at odds with the evidence.
Criss Cross
Hi Jim
Probably not coherent. I am so cross/fed up, but if you want to use this feel free.
NPS acknowledge that low morale in the workforce is an issue. Also that there aren’t enough of us. And that workplace bullying is a problem. Nonetheless, they persist in piling ludicrous tasks on overworked staff, micromanaging us to an inch of our sanity, and threatening us with sanctions if we... go sick, manage a case with SFO, don't meet a deadline, whatever.
Management is a job for managers, weirdly it seems to have become the sole activity of the “Service”, whose only function appears to be the meeting of management targets which should be a diagnostic, not a mission in itself.
One feature of this neurotic over-management is the requirement to record all contacts with clients on the case recording database using the CRISS model: Check in, Review, Intervention, Summary, Set Tasks. This is inevitably monitored by equally freaked-out team managers.
If you’re doing the job right, you are sustaining very marginal people, often remotely, in the middle of a global pandemic. This requires compassion, risk sensitive antennae, therapeutic skills, pragmatism. The job is to sustain people, keep them going, stop them hurting anyone else. I have done work since March of which I am very proud, and which has rehabilitated, and protected the public. Tragically, it felt subversive, and necessitated a) squeezing it in between the day job ticking boxes b) was almost impossible to record under the CRISS template.
Presumably the hope is:-
Check in: Having a bit of trouble with my decision making
Review: He does some dodgy things
Intervention: Stern talk which I will record as “Motivational Work” about not being an idiot. Reminder that Sanctions will follow non-compliance. Powerpoint print off re thinking skills
Summary: That is him sorted then
Set tasks: Record, cut and paste repeatedly
--oo00oo--
Removed at author's request.
Removed at author's request.
Especially for CQSW-qualified PO's:-
ReplyDeleteThe latest edition of the BJSW is published to both mark and celebrate the first fifty years of this still (by comparison) young profession.
This digital edition focuses on the key legislation and policy landmarks in the profession since 1970, as well as the examination - through the pages of the BJSW – of the response of social work practice and social work as a profession.
This Virtual Issue of the BJSW is, like the first, also something of an event. It celebrates fifty years of the journal’s relationship with BASW, and it presents a collection of fifty articles from this period, reflecting some of our most significant milestones and markers of progress.
It is not a sacred canon, but rather a selection of work that illuminates our growth and evolution. Crucially, it invites the reader to draw their own conclusions about how far we have come as a profession and academic discipline.
It also bids you—the practitioner, the academic, the policy maker, the person with lived experience—to simply pause and reflect on the story of social work as a movement, profession, practice, academic discipline and body of knowledge.
You can read the 50th edition in full online.
https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcaa137/5936341
Moving Away from Social Work and Half Way Back Again: New Research on Skills in Probation
DeleteAbstract
Research on social work in the criminal justice system was well represented in the social work literature until the 1990s. Since then, changes in the organisation, training and research base of probation practice, particularly in England and Wales, have all contributed to a separation between probation research and the mainstream social work research literature. However, recent probation research, by focusing on individual practice skills and on the quality of relationships, is producing findings which resonate with traditional social work concerns. The study presented here, based on analysis of videotaped interviews between probation staff and the people they are supervising, shows what skills are used and the effects of skilled supervision. People supervised by more skilled staff were significantly less likely to be reconvicted over a two-year follow-up, and the most effective supervisors combined good relationship skills with a range of ‘structuring’ or change-promoting skills. In effect, this can be regarded as a test of the impact of social work skills used by probation staff and suggests that a closer relationship between mainstream social work research and probation research could be productive for both.
Peter Raynor, Maurice Vanstone
The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 46, Issue 4, June 2016, Pages 1131–1147, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv008
Thank you.
DeleteThe profession of social work was well established when I started training in 1973, with strong routes to the work of Hospital Almoners, Mental Welfare Officers and Child Care Officers with such as the 1933 Child Care Act and later Boarding Out Regulations, not forgetting some Local Authority Housing Welfare Officers. (I am not sure how public authority work began with elderly frail and disabled people, in need of social work interventions)
Then also there was the Borstal After Care and Discharged Prisoners Aids Societies all connecting with police court missionaries and probation and family court welfare officers.
CCETSW with it's CQSW provided a shared training & qualification scheme to utilise the legislation that came out of the Seebohm report which defined the flexible boundary between Child Care Social Work and Probation and Family Court Work, at least in England and Wales.
AND yes work with female probation service supervisees does some times need gender specific work and also, due to the male/female roles many supervisees and workers grew up with sometimes female report writers and supervisors.
I struggle a bit with the notion of gender specifics with regard to offending and probation services.
DeleteI completely acknowledge that the motivations, reasons and drivers for female offending are particular and very different to what motivates and drives male patterns of offending. Yet within the male/female divide there exists a vast degree of difference as to what motivates and drives someone to offend.
When it comes to reducing reoffending and rehabilitation I rather think that interventions should be individual or issue specific rather then designed around generic divisions such as gender, age or race.
Divisions of any kind create cohorts, and cohorts tend to be identified by having the same one fits all shoe size.
To my mind it's about the individual, not the group, and that's why the social work ethos in probation was so important.
'Getafix
I’ve always asked why there’s a focus on female offenders, but not for black offenders who are known to be discriminated against by white professionals.
DeleteFemale offenders get a choice of female probation officers, but Black males do not get a choice of black male probation officers, even though we know institutional racism is rife in probation and the CJS.
Why is one group more important than the other?
And if you're a black and female offender?
DeleteThen you understand the point even more.
Delete“ Driving my interest into researching this area is my desire to have a career within the Probation Service after I graduate. ”
ReplyDeleteDon’t do it. There are better careers and better employers. Many training to be probation officers realise their mistake in the first year. Many leave within a year of qualifying.
Probation offices are flouting these rules.
ReplyDeleteNow we know where to report probation Directors and managers.
“Westminster Magistrates' Court staff warned after breaking social distancing rules”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/westminster-magistrates-court-warned-breaking-social-distancing-rules-coronavirus-a4573220.html
Bosses at Westminster Magistrates’ Court have been rebuked after staff were caught flouting social distancing rules in a coronavirus inspection.
DeleteThe Health and Safety Executive delivered a critical report on the court after discovering breaches of strict rules to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Susan Acland-Hood, the chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunal Service, has been ordered to oversee improvements before another inspection next month and was warned: “In the event of one person becoming Covid positive it is a very realistic prospect that it could widely affect the entire premises and possibly the general public as well.”
HSE inspector John Crookes visited the court on October 7 and found problems with social distancing, unsafe security checks, a sub-standard risk assessment for the building, and evidence court and conference rooms were being over-filled.
“Staff were sitting next to and facing each other and in some cases gathered around one computer”, he wrote. “While the distance between those facing each other may have been 2m, those side by side were closer with no further mitigation in place.”
He spotted staff “standing close together” and not wearing masks, as well as signs that a sofa and chairs around a tea table had been used for a group conversation in breach of distancing rules.
Ms Acland-Hood has been told the court’s risk assessment must be overhauled by November 11, including on cleaning arrangements and social distancing training. The courts service promised that “immediate action to address their concerns” is being taken.
Alex Cunningham MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Courts and Sentencing, said the HSE report laid bare how a court could become a “hotbed of infection. This is typical of the government’s incompetent handling of this crisis. The Ministry of Justice needs to get a grip of this urgently.”
The court was not ordered to immediately shutdown as a result of the failings, and HMCTS promised that “immediate action to address their concerns” is being taken.
“Public health agencies have endorsed our approach to assessing risk and keeping court users safe in our buildings”, a spokesperson said. “The Health and Safety Executive is content for the court to stay open and continue to safely hear cases.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/covid-contracts-tory-vips-coronavirus-labour-leak-cabinet-office-b1422098.html%3famp
DeleteI agree with previous comments about "why the focus on female offenders", but I would urge the service to focus more on "men" and "masculinity" and "what approaches work for MEN". I take the point about "young black men" as a sub-set of this, but I really don't feel we've got the basics right. The assumption (by a service dominated by women probation officers and managers) is that women need a "feminine specific approach" but that the status quo is a one size fits all for men who make up 95% of the service. I don't disagree that women-specific services should be developed and researched; I do disagree that we don't explore services from a masculinised lens. Arguably "sitting in an office chatting about problems, more often than not with a female probation officer" is an extremely feminine oriented approach already, which doesn't necessarily "fit" well for many men. My heart sinks when I read yet another OASYS which says "Bob has no issues with emotional wellbeing" and this is not thought to be a criminogenic need or linked to risk, even though Bob is unemployed, has financial problems, relationship issues, problems with violence and was brought up in a violent home. What Bob might need is to take him outside, focus on him as a person, over time his issues will come out.
ReplyDeleteFinally I agree with comments about "command and control" - OASYS has GOT to go to be replaced with an assessment system which makes sense, CRISSA has got to go, Risk registers (or at least updating them every five minutes) has got to go - and can someone please make that bloody box in Delius larger so I can actually see what's in it - actually fuck it, Delius has got to go, I spend too much time clickety clicking and not enough time WORKING. We need to chose ONE of these issues and band together and say "enough is enough - we are NOT doing this anymore"....the person is more important than the CRISSA notes I write about them.
My hair stands on end every time I hear a PO speak about a case as if they are some kind of human Tamagochi: "I could just take him home, give him a hot meal & a bit of attention - he'd blossom in no time!"
DeleteThe lack of understanding allied with the extraordinary level of arrogance in such an inappropriate comment is astonishing. But its not unusual, its not uncommon & its not frowned upon.
If a male supervising officer said anything vaguely similar about a case they'd be branded a predator & on the sex offender register in a heartbeat.
These are very odd times, with very odd values underpinning very odd practices.
At the other end of the spectrum, I cringe every time I hear PO’s tell offenders, “I am here to manage your risk”. We are becoming an army of command and control robots.
Delete@anon 19:12
DeleteAll services are devised from a 'masculinised lens' and all our approaches are researched around a white hetero male norm. Your 'Bob' analogy makes little sense, surely the feminised approach you suggest we take would be more likely than not to identify 'Bob's' emotional well-being challenges.
It would be refreshing if we actually looked at race and class barriers faced by our service users but us men don't warrant being further pandered to because of our sex.
Agreed - just love that risk management economy created by The Centre so their on-message chums in academia could sell sackloads of shit, politicians could scare the public witless & NOMS/HMPPS could control the probation narrative.
DeleteNo 21:31, you've missed the point - the approach would not (in my view) work because Bob himself is a man. In any case, what I'm advocating is a more flexible approach, not necessarily that "all" men can't benefit from "sitting in a room chatting about problems"....when I see what is advocated/implemented for women - women's centres, counselling, women specific issues being addressed and discussed with other women - I think, hang on, why don't we offer this to men who need a "male oriented" centre, with other men, talking about issues men feel with other men, and certainly men need counselling. But oh no, a man is seen as a "risk that needs managing" with "offending programmes" and "punishment" - it's only women apparently who need a tailored approach which focusses on their history and wellbeing as the primary focus. And to repeat, I am NOT saying women should not be entitled to this. But I do want services that actually work for the individual, and probation as a concept clearly is NOT working and yet 95% of of services are provided to MEN.
ReplyDeleteThe highest rate of suicide was recorded as 21.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 1988. Male suicides have consistently accounted for approximately three-quarters of all suicides in the UK since the mid-1990s. 6,507 people died by suicide in 2018, significantly more than in 2017.
DeleteThat’s because the female-oriented world of probation really believes;
Delete-Men are inherently born bad and need changing, “That’s why they’re all on probation”.
-Men are perpetrators of violence and domestic violence but never really victims.
-Men don’t really have childcare commitments, they’re secondary carers at best.
-Men that are bad, victims or have problems can be helped by the female army of probation officers.
-That’s unless they’re successful and haven’t needed probation “yet”, and “stop impacting on women’s rights”.
It is because this army of probation has been manipulated into “managing risk” that every man on probation has become an object of oppression. The rights, beliefs and freedoms of these men are eroded the moment they walk through the door. This is why there are no choices of probation officer, no therapeutic groups, no advise, assist and befriend.
As a partner agency worker, I’m never sure if I should feel sorry or angry towards the male probation officers that sit back and watch it happen, some just as abused by and others as bad as the females.
Is it really that scary to;
-Fist bump a client.
-Tell him the police stopped and searched him because of poverty, classism or racism.
-Agree that 10 RAR appointments will not change his life much.
-Take him for a cup of coffee and a burger a few times a week and telling him about all the other services that might change his life, starting with health, education and employment.
-And if he needs no help, fist bump and let him go. He’ll call if he needs you.
People change by building them up, not by micromanaging their lives and breaking them down.
The current Probation service that sucks up to the police, creates little security units to please Tory ministers and buddies up with prison governors by unnecessarily vetting it’s own staff, wouldn’t understand a word of 00:58.
Delete0058 makes some interesting points. Yes it is feminised beyond balance. Senior leadership is now over rich in Women. Men dare not have a real view it is all put the women and minority crap through and do turn an eye when always required. Th eemphasis on being seen to done is not the same as recognising the damage being left in the trail. There is no equalities in the staffing and the upward mobile are chosen by these people than talent or ability.
DeleteNo, @anon 23:03, I haven't missed your point all, I just completely disagree with it on almost every conceivable level. It's poorly constructed point that contradicts itself then somehow manages to become an analogue of 'all lives matter'.
ReplyDeleteAs for the comment of @anon 00:58 , well that's a catalogue of misconceptions and willful distortions and the less said about it the better.
The sentiments in these comments, the characterization of a feminised army and passive beta male PO cucks, are a whisker away from the bile found all too readily elsewhere from MRAs. Its a wholly warped narrative that sure as hell doesn't reflect my experience as a PO.
Well done 00:58...refreshing and interesting points well made!
ReplyDeleteI do love how corporate bullshit tells us how we need to more reflect the community we serve...well if that really were the case, the service would employ 95% men!! Which is clearly ridiculous and not required!! What is required is to start thinking about why we are unsuccessful at working with about 50% of our users, and I'm suggested tailoring services around what men actually need is one of many ways to achieve this...or we simply be more honest as a service that we are here to punish and enforce and that is our end goal.
ReplyDeleteProbation is unsuccessful because it doesn’t reflect the community we serve.
DeleteThis doesn’t just mean more male POs, but more difference across all probation jobs;
More men
More Black, Asian and ethnic people, especially men..
More working class people who didn’t goto university.
More people with criminal records.
More people that have overcome addictions.
More people that have migrated from other countries.
More people that have lived life.