Trauma In Probation

Particularly over recent months, I've become increasingly aware of both a toxic cultural environment becoming prevalent within the probation service, together with evidence of staff suffering from workplace-induced trauma. Of course this has been powerfully evidenced most recently by personal testimonies, but I've long been made aware of the situation through other private communications going back several years. The situation has massively worsened since the enforced takeover by HM Prison Service and will not improve as their grip on the service tightens and the dead hand of the civil service continues to erase the distinctive probation ethos. 

So, as this extremely depressing scenario continues to play out, I must express thanks to the reader for pointing me in the direction of the following paper designed to support Practice Supervisors and although mainly intended for the children's social care sector, I'm pretty sure the introduction and Section one will resonate with many probation staff:-        

PSDP–Resources for Managers of Practice Supervisors: A spotlight on organisational trauma: the system as the ‘client’

Introduction 

Although relatively new in this country, thinking of organisations as being able to hold trauma is an increasingly influential school of thought which informs our understanding of workplace culture. 

This tool was written by Dr Karen Treisman, a clinical psychologist, trainer, organisational consultant and author who specialises in trauma. Its content was drawn from her direct practice, and from a 2019 Winston Churchill Fellowship trip during which she met with over 100 people from 14 cities across the USA. 

The focus of this research was to learn from best and innovative practice around organisational and system change to become more informed about / responsive to trauma, adversity and workplace culture. You can read more about Dr Triesman’s findings in her latest book, ‘A Treasure Box for Creating Trauma-Informed Organizations: A Ready-to-Use Resource for Trauma, Adversity, and Culturally Informed, Infused and Responsive Systems’.

This tool is an extracted and adapted contribution from that book. It has been developed for middle leaders in children’s social care who have a strategic focus within the organisation, and for practice supervisors with line management responsibilities.

Sections one and two of the tool provide information about different aspects of organisational trauma, followed by reflective questions. In section three, you have the opportunity to review the history and journey of your organisation’s relationship with trauma, and to reflect on what actions or conversations you might want to initiate as a result. Please note, this tool is an important but small piece of the overall organisational trauma picture. It is intended to act as a spotlight and a way of beginning to think about this area of work, other aspects of which include:

> cultural humility 

> organisational triggers 

> organisational adverse experiences.

To develop a more comprehensive understanding of the full impact of organisational trauma, you will need to do further reading and gather more information.

Section one: what do we mean when we talk about organisational trauma?

Just like people, organisations are alive. They’re always developing and adapting, and can be equally vulnerable to stress. Loss, dissociation and toxic stress can spread like contagion throughout an organisation. When this happens, it can become traumatised, unhealthy and distressed, which can result in practices that induce (rather than reduce) trauma, resulting in a trauma-driven culture. In order to protect themselves from painful feelings, organisations often respond to trauma in the same way as people, i.e. by operating in survival mode. When this happens, all that unacknowledged pain, stress, anxiety and dissociation get passed down and pushed deeper into the fabric of their workings. In such cases, you may find that people, teams, or the culture of the organisation itself, can become:

• reactive or crisis-driven 
• avoidant, numb, detached or dissociated (either emotionally or from the organisational mission, or both) 
• polarised in its thinking e.g. them vs us / good vs bad etc. (this includes ‘othering’ and splitting processes) 
• unreflective or lacking in trust 
• too busy to think or feel 
• defensive 
• on edge and hyper-vigilant 
• physically and emotionally unwell confused, lost, alone and disoriented 
• dysregulated 
• chaotic 
• frozen and frustrated 
• rigid and inflexible (which includes striving for perfectionism) 
• mournful and grief-stricken 
• helpless and depressed 
• disconnected, disintegrated, incoherent and fragmented.

On top of organisational trauma, many practitioners carry their own adversity and stress, which can compound existing factors, as exemplified by this classic quotation from Remen (1994, p. 96): 

‘The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it, is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water and expecting not to get wet.’

That’s why we need to name, acknowledge and explore the impact of phenomena like secondary trauma, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout, as well as being curious about wider team and organisational dynamics. This is fundamental to our own and to other people’s wellbeing. 

Wellbeing is not only essential for the work itself, but has a ripple effect on decision-making, relationship-based practice, staff satisfaction, sickness, and so on.

The information you have read in Section 1 is adapted from Dr Treisman’s Winston Churchill Fellowship report on adversity, culturally and trauma informed, infused and responsive organisations. If you are citing any of this content please be sure to reference this report. So, thinking more about the notion that an organisation can operate in survival mode and be impacted by trauma, this also means that an organisation, like a person, can become consumed, flooded and overwhelmed by trauma, adversity and stress. For example, the organisation itself, or a team within it, can become ‘trauma-organised’ and ‘trauma-soaked’, meaning it can be dominated by survival needs and the forces of organisational culture.

Dr Sandy Bloom, a trailblazer and leader in this field, defines the term trauma-organised in her Sanctuary book series: ‘When an individual, family, organisation, system, or culture becomes fundamentally and unconsciously organized around the impact of chronic and toxic stress, even when this undermines its adaptive ability’ (2013). What we might see and feel when this is the case is that trauma, loss, dissociation, dysregulation and toxic stress can spread like a contagion or a wildfire throughout an organisation. It can interrupt the organisation’s flow, the ripple effects can be felt throughout the system’s multiple layers and if it isn’t attended to it can continue to spread and intensify.

The word trauma comes from the Greek traumata, which means ‘to pierce’. This is entirely apt when thinking of trauma within organisations because it can wound, pierce and permeate individual, familial, organisational and societal layers. Erik de Soir (2015) talks about how the organisation’s protective emotional membrane can be pierced by trauma. Trauma can also be absorbed and taken in while at the same time leaking and spilling out. Shohet and Shohet (2019) describe how, without reflection, processing and so forth, trauma can be experienced by the organisation as badly ingested food, swallowed and then regurgitated later. 

Although these concepts can be applied to any organisation, they are especially important to acknowledge in places of work where practitioners have to deal with a lot of stress and trauma as a matter of course (e.g., children’s social care, residential homes for children in care, prisons, services for those in emotional distress, etc.).