Self-preservation

"No Choice But to Leave” : When Self-Preservation Becomes the Only Option

I didn’t leave probation because I stopped caring. In fact, the hardest part of leaving was how much I still cared — about the work, the people on my caseload, and the colleagues I was leaving behind. But by the end, I genuinely felt I had no choice. Self-preservation wasn’t a preference; it was a last resort. The research article “No Choice But to Leave” captures something I recognise deeply. It describes probation staff who remain loyal to the vocational ideal of the service long after the organisation itself has become unliveable. That was certainly true for me.

Staying Longer Than Was Healthy

Like many others, I didn’t walk away at the first sign of difficulty. I stayed. I adapted. I absorbed more work, more pressure, more emotional strain. I tried to remain positive and constructive, even as workloads grew heavier and the space to do meaningful probation work shrank. I raised concerns. I offered solutions. I kept telling myself that things would improve, or that my experience and commitment could somehow make a difference. Over time, though, the cost became impossible to ignore. Exhaustion stopped being temporary and became my baseline. The research talks about constrained voice — that sense of speaking up without being heard. That resonates. It’s not that opportunities to speak don’t exist on paper; it’s that repeated attempts to engage are met with managerial language, structural inertia, or quiet deflection. Eventually, you stop believing your voice matters.

When Values No Longer Fit the System

One of the most painful aspects was the growing mismatch between what probation claims to be and how it often operates in practice. The vocational ideal — supporting people to change, exercising professional judgement, building relationships — increasingly clashed with a target-driven, bureaucratic reality. The legacy of Transforming Rehabilitation still hangs heavily over the service. Market-style thinking, excessive performance management, and administrative overload have reshaped probation in ways that erode professional identity. It becomes harder to recognise yourself in the role you’re doing. This creates an internal conflict: you’re still committed to the people you work with, but less and less able to do right by them.

Guilt, Loyalty, and Letting Go

Leaving brought relief, but it also brought guilt. I think that’s important to say out loud. I felt guilty about the colleagues I left behind — people I respected, people who were also struggling, people who would now carry even more weight because someone else had gone. That guilt is powerful, and it keeps many people in post far longer than they should stay. But I’ve come to understand something else too: I am not responsible for the conditions that drove me out. Those conditions were not of my making, and I exhausted myself trying to work within them, challenge them, and remain constructive until the very end. The research describes this as complicated loyalty — loyalty not to the organisation, but to the profession and to colleagues. It’s a loyalty that sustains commitment, but also masks systemic harm. At some point, staying becomes a form of self-neglect rather than solidarity.

Exit as Survival, Not Failure

When people talk about probation staff leaving, it’s often framed as a resilience problem or a retention issue. But “No Choice But to Leave” makes clear what many already know: exit is often a rational response to sustained harm. By the time I left, I wasn’t choosing between staying and going. I was choosing between continuing at significant cost to my health, or stepping away to protect myself. In that sense, it didn’t feel like a failure. It felt like survival.

What This Should Make Us Ask

If experienced, committed practitioners are reaching the point where self-preservation is their only option, then the problem is not individual weakness. It is organisational. People aren’t leaving because they don’t care. They’re leaving because caring has become too costly — and because staying any longer would mean losing themselves in the process. That should concern everyone. I think I have paid a high price for choosing probation as a career. Too high really, if I consider the impact on my family. I am still struggling with dealing with the impact of what I had to deal with. I regret now that I didn't leave earlier than I did. I know I am not alone.

Anon