'My job has made me cry and feel anxious - but I genuinely believe we make a difference': Life as a probation officer
Dreaming of a new career? Sam Gildersleeve talks to our Money team about the realities of being a probation officer.
If you've ever spent your morning commute daydreaming about starting afresh with your career, this feature is for you. Each Monday, our Money team speaks to someone from a different profession to discover what it's really like. This week we chat to senior probation officer Sam Gildersleeve...
The starting salary depends on your role... To become a probation officer, you need to complete the trainee probation officer programme, known as the Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP). The starting salary for a PQiP is £26,475 (or £30,724 with the London weighting of £4,249). Once qualified, your salary rises to £35,130. With experience, you can apply for promotion to a senior probation officer role.
The PQiP programme... combines classroom learning with hands-on experience in the role. You're paid while you train, and you receive protected study time. Depending on your qualifications, the programme can take 15, 21 or 27 months. Once qualified, you'll be registered as a probation officer and added to the Probation Professional Register. This recognises your competence in managing risk and supporting rehabilitation with the right knowledge, skills, and professionalism.
There are also many other roles... within the probation service, including probation services officers, victim liaison officers, programme facilitators, unpaid work supervisors, case administrators, receptionists, and staff working in approved premises and prisons.
I manage a team of 13 staff... including probation officers and probation support officers. I'm responsible for overseeing risk management and ensuring we work closely with partner agencies like children's services, the police, mental health teams, housing providers, and prisons to manage risk effectively. A big part of my role involves performance management and providing supervision to my team - helping them reflect on their caseloads and professional development. I really enjoy supporting my team to grow in confidence and ability.
Our team currently oversees... more than 400 people on probation.
I work 37 hours a week... Monday to Friday. I'm not personally on call, although some senior probation officers provide out-of-hours cover for approved premises. As a probation officer, you may work later in the evening to accommodate people on probation who are working during the day.
The camaraderie really depends on... the day - some days are busier than others. But we do socialise as a team, especially for birthdays or celebrations. We work in a challenging environment, but the support and humour within the team make a real difference.
I haven't made any solid plans to retire... I still feel too young to think seriously about retirement! I'd like to keep working as long as I can, maybe part-time eventually. We're part of the Local Government Pension Scheme, which is a great benefit. The employer contributes 26.5%, and I contribute 6.5%. It's a very generous scheme and gives peace of mind for the future.
In terms of perks... we get between 25 and 30 days paid annual leave a year, according to length of service, if you are a full-time employee. We're eligible for a Blue Light Card, which gives you discounts at loads of places. You can also win free tickets to events. We have access to wellbeing and counselling services, free physiotherapy (which really helped when I ran the London Marathon), health MOTs, eye care vouchers, and MoJ rewards like free drinks from Cafe Nero or Greggs. There are probably perks I haven't even discovered yet.
I haven't ever felt scared... but occasionally I feel anxious - which I think is healthy. You're often meeting people in challenging situations, so being cautious and prepared is important. I always treat people with respect, explain the purpose of appointments clearly, and listen. That often diffuses tension.
The scariest situation was when... a person on probation with complex mental health needs, homelessness, and substance misuse became very aggressive when I asked him to complete a drug test - a condition of his licence. He threw a bottle and became verbally threatening, and was asked to leave. He later waited outside the office for me. It was frightening, but I was fully supported by my manager, who arranged a safe journey home and provided a personal alarm. The incident was reported to police, and safety measures were put in place. I was reassured and able to carry on with my job.
Of course there are days when I don't want to go in... just like any job. But I do really enjoy my role. It's busy and at times intense, but I genuinely believe in the service and what we do. That belief keeps me motivated.
The most rewarding part of my job now is... seeing my team develop and succeed. But when I was a probation officer, it was supporting people to change.
I worked with a young man involved in drug dealing after being groomed by a gang. On release from prison, we built a personalised risk management plan together. He was housed safely and found a job, away from his old contacts. Over time, he grew in confidence and completed his sentence without being recalled for the first time. At his final appointment, he simply said: "Thanks for believing in me." That meant everything.
Most people don't really know... what a probation officer does. They're usually curious and interested, and often say: "I couldn't do that." I'm always happy to explain the role and share how much good the service does.
The biggest misconception is... that we're just there to befriend people on probation. People don't see the behind-the-scenes work to manage risk and protect the public. Probation is often invisible in the media - unlike the police, courts, or prisons. There's no TV drama or documentary that really captures what we do. Maybe there should be!
The job can be... unpredictable. Things crop up that can change your day. But the team is incredibly supportive. People always help each other out when needed, which makes a big difference.
The job has made me cry... though, it's rare and usually depends on the situation. While I have cried before, I don't see this as a weakness, and it was mostly due to frustration at feeling that perhaps I wish there was more that I could do to help an individual. We're all human, and that's part of caring about the work we do. There is a great support network within the probation service, mainly from colleagues that are always willing to support.
One moment that stands out is... when I was working with a young man involved in domestic abuse. He reflected on how his actions had wider impacts - the "ripple effect.". Later, he told me he'd felt angry during an argument but remembered our conversations and chose to walk away and kick a football instead. That insight and self-control showed real progress.
The reason people reoffend varies but... common reasons include a lack of stability, poor housing, unemployment, substance misuse, mental health issues, and limited support networks. It's rarely just one issue.
This role is for people who are... resilient, empathetic, and curious. You'll face complex, often challenging situations, and need to make decisions that affect lives and protect the public. No two days are the same. You'll work with people at their lowest points, and will need to build trust to help them change.
The probation service values... diversity. We want to reflect the communities we serve. If you bring life experience, emotional intelligence, and a willingness to learn, this could be the career for you. Visit our website to find out more - and who knows, maybe I'll meet you one day!
These SPOs are on a roll, from this and the previous post. Leading by example and publicising it too. This is much better than those that sit with the door closed firing off snotty emotionless emails. I see a probation practice book deal coming for Hylton & Gildersleeve, one we’ll probably want to read.
ReplyDeleteNo mention of the endless, boring, repetitive form filling, bureaucracy and target driven culture.
ReplyDeleteThe MoJ want to recruit people as kindred social workers, ( there’s a good old fashioned phrase) but then prevent them from doing that sort of work. They then become mystified when people complain and leave.
No working member of staff would be able to publish a piece about probation without our employer's sign-off. Our employer is notoriously defensive and controlling, so its really brilliant to read these two's work, because they chime with the values I hold as crucial to probation, but also becuase they were allowed to publish. That signals to me a desire at the top to get Probation back onto a more wholesome and effective footing.
ReplyDeleteThey dont have much of a clue about what that actually means on a more than superficial level, I reckon, but it is a chink of light, and possibly an opportunity
Of course practitioners are ruthlessly gagged from going off approved script in public and that is awful and unconstructive. I've experienced first hand just how jumpy and aggressive they can be in that regard. But the silver lining is that these writers are on approved script.
I'm absolutely up for making the argument for a Probation Service separated from Prison service, out of the civil service, locally embedded, quasi-independent, founded on its traditional values. Lord knows I bang on about that endlessly. That doesnt mean that this side of the debate has got all the answers and is completely right about everything. Or that HMPPS is getting absolutely everything wrong. We can be nuanced, which is generally more interesting than binary and tribal.
Having said which, during the TR resistance campaigning, I (along with most everybody in the profession) was completely right and Grayling and his muppets were completely wrong. I shouted "People will die" at a Police and Crime Commissioner on one occasion, reflecting later that maybe I had been a bit over-dramatic, but ...
Pearly Gates
To be fair PG, this one really went off script. I do not think this is the employers message at all!!
Deletehttps://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2025/07/outlier-england.html?m=1
Pearly Gates always makes perfect sense. I'm pretty hung up on 'identity ' at the moment, and believe that what ever changes have been foisted upon probation, it must at it's core always remain anchored to its traditional values.
DeleteIts ethos has to be its headline regardless of whatever rhetoric the narrative may contain.
"The study of individual and organizational identities has attracted considerable research in the field of management and organizational studies (Corlett et al. 2017). Much of this research has been influenced by social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979, 1986), which suggests that the social groups to which we belong form a significant part of our self-concept. Research on the ways people draw on their membership of organizations in their constructions of self has generated the social-psychological concept of organizational identification, defined as ‘the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization’ (Mael and Ashforth, 1992: 104). For employees, the organizations in which they work offer an important source for identification."
https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azaf007/8030260
'Getafix
Abstract
DeleteThe Probation Service for England & Wales offers an important case study for those who are interested in the impact(s) of organizational change on workers in criminal justice and, in particular, the identity work that they engage in as they move through frequent iterations of change. In this article, we draw on data from an ongoing longitudinal study of probation reform to explore identity work among a mixed sample of practitioner and management grade staff in one of 12 probation regions. Our analysis reveals the significance of both occupational and organizational sources of identification to workers of all grades, but also evidence of dis-identification with aspects of the current organization. It further reveals the importance of anchors through change in workers’ identities as they navigate paths through successive reforms. These anchors include values, places and structures that are part of probation’s legacy but which offer a sense of continuity and meaning to workers as they adapt within a turbulent field.
Introduction
DeleteThe systemization and creeping marketization of criminal justice that has occurred in many Western jurisdictions in the last 30 years has exposed workers to new challenges as the organizations in which they work have been subject to seemingly relentless ‘reforms’ in the name of enhancing efficiency and/or effectiveness. These reforms have included the colonization of services and their policies by central governments, experiments with outsourcing provision, the reconfiguration of local and regional boundaries and the merging of formerly separate organizations. The probation service in England & Wales is perhaps unique in having experienced all of the above in the context of a sequence of reform programmes that have included four major organizational restructures between 2001 and 2021 (HMIP 2021). In this article, we deploy social identity theory and the related concept of identity work as a starting point for an exploration of how probation workers at all levels within the organization have navigated change and, in particular, their own occupational and organizational identities in a rapidly evolving context.
Concluding Discussion
DeleteOur findings suggest that those with responsibility for leading major reform programmes in the criminal justice field should caution against easy assumptions about how workers will adapt to top-down changes about which they have had little say.--//-- In the probation setting, the transition to the Civil Service—a values-based organization—might have been assumed to be acceptable to probation workers who are known to have a strong occupational identity grounded in values. But as we have demonstrated, any such assumptions have been ill-founded. Although ‘probation values’ have often been ill-defined and contested over the years (e.g. Nellis 1995; Gelsthorpe 2007), our research suggests that the contemporary configuration of probation services has served to emphasize dearly held values associated with voice and local accountability that do not sit well with the nesting of probation within larger structures which are experienced as obstructive.
The findings presented in this article appear to lend support to the comments of the outgoing Chief Inspector of Probation in September 2023, who took the opportunity to ‘look back over what has been a tumultuous and difficult period for the Probation Service and to offer some reflections on the future as well’ (Russell 2023: 6). He continued:
Delete[...] it’s important that the voice and interests of the Probation Service continue to get the leadership attention they so desperately need. Many in the service hark back to the days (not that long ago), when probation was a genuinely local service – locally accountable rather than run from Whitehall, focused on local partnerships and able to act autonomously within them. Given our [inspection] results from the past year, and after speaking to probation leaders and managers around England and Wales, I have to say I have increasing sympathy with this view [...] While I recognise that another reorganisation of the service, and any shift in this direction would have to be with the explicit agreement of local managers and staff, I think the time has come for an independent review of whether probation should move back to a more local form of governance and control (Russell 2023: 8).
A ‘strategic review of probation governance’ also featured in the 2024 election manifesto of the Labour party.11 Whether such a review will be prioritized by the new Labour government remains to be seen, but our contemporaneous findings in respect of the identity work of probation staff, and in particular the anchors through change that sustain them, would suggest that such a review would be welcomed.
As usual, 'Getafix nails it :)
DeleteNot really Russel played the game in role often fudging. Harking back to localised delivery defeats the consistency in justice arguments which is why the panoply was stopped and amalgamated. It won't come back as justice has to be the same provision in each place. It's time we all understood what the future is to be.
Delete