Guest Blog 94

A probation officer at heart and soul

I feel this person's pain and exhaustion at 19:36*. I really do. I have read your blog for years and found it a haven for like minded individuals such as myself where I can find solace and sense and confirmation that I am not the only one feeling frustrated and angry. I have contributed on a couple of occasions.

I sometimes mourn the standard of writing and not only on this blog. The standard of writing and grammar in PSR's is frankly lamentable and the lack of vocabulary shows that colleagues no longer read the written word via books but on phones from which they all seem to need surgical removal. I don't know what the judiciary think, but there is, in my view, nothing quite like a Judge's Judgement prose and nothing worse than a badly written parole report either. Everything now is so proscribed.

While you say that influential people read your blog and I don't doubt that they do, but why is nothing done? The gross mismanagement of the service is evident on all fronts based on the failures we hear about daily and inspectorate reports. As for the Head of the Service, I have never met a prison governor yet who actually understood what probation officers did and this one is no different to that and has an agenda of her own.

Staff morale is at an all time low and retention figures are poor no matter what they say overall. The majority of people in my office are actively job hunting and I have dabbled, I will admit.

Having joined the service over 20 years ago, I felt it was a vocation. I had the opportunity to experience a number of secondments now no longer available to staff but I feel all my experience is currently wasted on cases I was managing 20 years ago and with more resources.

We had a meeting recently and I voiced my concern at the hemorrhaging of experienced staff and overall poor training and why were part time or semi retired staff not permitted to mentor others and to teach specialist areas of interest instead of case working? Lip service agreement was paid which was insulting, but nothing is ever done because it does not fit the one size fits all model and I watch younger poorly trained - yes I said it - colleagues battling to understand the complexities of cases they have been given when the allocating SPO clearly has no clue either or it would never have been allocated to the colleague in the first place. All I ever want from a manager is that they know more than I do and have my back and I am whistling down the wind for that.

Why hasn't someone got rid of PSS? or would it not look good on the tory election agenda being harsh on crime and all that. I am sick of suggesting it to management and was told that it was a 'big ticket item' I was asking for so what is a PDU head for but to take those concerns further up the chain? God I give up.

Don't get me started on the egregious SFO process and the blame culture. I worked out that one particularly insidious SFO reviewer and 'Uriah Heap' type character who sat in front of me with steepled fingers, a body language signifier of control if ever I saw one, bailed out when TR hit, so has never actually case worked or managed a team in the current climate. I was told I had done a good job etc., etc., and then followed up with a nit picking 10 page report!!

I find myself taking new staff in hand and trying to do what I can to assist, but management want bums on seats and caseworkers so I am stuck using my part time to case manage cases for whom I am able to expend limited time and not able to apply my skill set where it is needed. There is little or no practical training for these type of cases. New staff need to know how to manage them and the offenders for whom disguised compliance is the order of the day and professional curiosity is off the scale.

I am mentally withdrawing from it all, but am not ready to retire yet. However, I am sitting on the side lines here and while the onlooker always sees more of the ball game, I am looking at a relentless, unstoppable catastrophic train smash of a service.

On one of my non working days I am a volunteer where I am valued and staff are grateful for what I can do. I am grateful they have me. My tea making (puts the world to rights!) skills are well advanced and I assisted feeding someone this week which we both found of benefit. Staff don't have time which is why I am here. It keeps me grounded, gives back to the community where I cannot in my paid work and lets me believe that I am doing what I was put on this earth for, helping others.

No doubt there will be others whose response will be, to get out of the kitchen if the heat is too much or you don't like the chef's recipe. I am a probation officer at heart and soul, but I am not sure what that is nowadays and we have lost our sense of identity. I am having to learn to find another identity as retirement looms. My manager says I can't leave, because of the level of experience and lack of it in the office, but it has to happen some time, hence the urgency to pass on my years of learning to others. I can't complain at the pay either for the hours I work. 

Anon

--oo00oo--

* "I will not be going to work on Monday. I am tired. I go to work as I have done for 17 years, a once proud probation officer totally demoralised by the shit show probation has become and the disgusting treatment of staff. I go home tired and then watch politicians from both major parties condoning Israeli actions in Gaza. The actions of Hamas should have been seen for what it was-murder terrorism- but the actions of a so called democratic state which flouts international law has only exasperated the horrors. Am I depressed? Probably. Am I angry, fuck yes. I am probably fortunate that I don’t use drugs, including alcohol, to mask my thoughts. I hope the younger generation can create a better, more just world."