Reflections

We seem to be entering a very dark period in history?

I came with a compass, to advise and befriend,
To help a lost soul find a way to the end
Of a dark, tangled path, to stand by their side,
With a value of justice, a purpose, a guide.

But the compass is broken, the map is a lie,
Replaced by a screen with a blinkless red eye.
It counts my compliance, my ticks and my checks,
The weight of the data now bows down my neck.

“Assist and befriend?” A forgotten, old phrase.
The mantra is “Process,” and count down the days.
“Enforce and recall!” the new leadership cries,
While the light of true help in a deep office dies.

I’m a social worker, they gave me a caseload,
Then a lawman’s cold badge and a perilous road.
I’m told to seek risk in a handshake, a glance,
And to never, not ever, be given to chance.

My desk is a fortress of files and of fears,
Of silent goodbyes and unshed, bitter tears.
For the man who’s now homeless, the woman who’s using,
The system’s cold cogs are just brutally bruising.

I’m haunted by faces, the ones I can’t save,
From the churn of the recall, the pull of the grave.
I’m told to show compassion, to practice with care,
But the culture we have is a soul-baring snare.

They speak of “moral injury,” clinical, cold,
A wound that is sold when your conscience is sold.
It’s the chasm that grows between what’s right and the task,
The answer you know, but are too weary to ask.

So the rage and the grief find a home in this blog,
A cry from the heart, a dis-spirited log.
Of a service that’s sick, that treats people like shit,
From the client to staff, who are forced to submit.

But sometimes, a moment, a flicker of trust,
A person, not casefile, rising from dust.
A “thank you” that’s genuine, a small, hard-won start…
That flicker still beats in my professional heart.

Though the badge that they gave me feels heavy and cold,
A story of humanity, waiting, untold.

ANARCHIST PO 🇵🇸

--oo00oo--

The Line We Used to Walk

There was a time when probation in England
stood on the softer ground of hope—
a practice built on patience,
on conversation,
on the simple belief that change grows best
in the presence of trust.
Advise, assist, befriend
was more than a motto;
it was a way of meeting people
where they were,
and walking with them toward where they could be.

But the centre has shifted.
Policy, panic, and headlines have pulled the work
into colder territory—
a landscape governed by algorithms,
“risk,”
and endless demands to monitor, enforce, recall.
Clipboards now speak louder than compassion,
and the door that once opened to rehabilitation
revolves faster and faster
with unnecessary recalls and shattered confidence.

The human cost is mounting.
Two probation officers have been stabbed in recent months,
leaving colleagues stunned, grieving,
and painfully aware of the dangers
that rarely make the news.
Their empty chairs haunt the office,
quiet reminders of how exposed,
how undervalued,
frontline staff have become.

Morale is sinking—not for lack of commitment,
nor courage,
but because so many feel the soul of the job
is slipping away.
The role that once built bridges
is now asked to build barriers.
The work that once changed lives
now too often revolves around
fear of failure,
fear of scrutiny,
fear of blame.

And yet—
beneath the weight of it all,
a stubborn spark remains.
Call it belief, call it duty,
call it the memory of what probation once was
and what, one day,
it could be again.

Because the heart of this profession
was never meant to beat in time
with enforcement targets.
It was meant to beat
for people—
all their complexity,
their possibility,
their imperfect, necessary hope.

Anon