Q. What does EM stand for?
A. Electronic Monitoring!
I sh*t you not, how condescending are the ‘experts’ compiling this training for POs with Bachelor’s Degrees, MSc’s and other post graduate qualifications. Has it come to this because the probation qualifications have lost credibility, training reduced to 15 months, struggling to recruit educated individuals with lived experience? Then again it might be just so those further up the management chain can pass the online modules after all they have had their crayons removed.
I’ve now completed the Supervision Packages module. I still have several more to go. At this rate I’m expecting the final module to explain that offending is generally discouraged.
The humour wears rather thin though, because underneath the painfully simplistic presentation are significant changes to how probation supervision actually operates: capped contacts, restricted home visits, contingency arrangements, new rules about when additional contact can take place and systems for monitoring how practitioners use them.
Those changes deserve proper professional discussion. What happens when the person in front of you doesn’t fit neatly into the model? When risk is changing but not sufficiently to satisfy a prescribed threshold? When professional judgement tells you more contact is necessary? And, inevitably, when something subsequently goes seriously wrong, whose judgement will be examined?
Apparently qualified practitioners can be trusted to manage serious risk, safeguarding, domestic abuse, complex offending and decisions which may have enormous consequences for the public — but first we must click through several screens explaining the purpose of a home visit.
I’m exhausted by it, frankly. Not because professional development is unnecessary, but because this isn’t professional development. It is information transfer dressed up as training, consuming the very practitioner capacity OFPS is supposedly designed to release.
Perhaps when I finally reach the end there’ll be a certificate confirming that I am now competent to press “Continue”. I’ll treasure it.
Anon
*****
Where has the real probation uplift training gone? Do you remember sitting in a room with 12 other people, catching up about what was going on in the area and then having knowledgeable colleagues delivering proper training, ice breakers, break out rooms, role play meaningful discussion and feedback.
Now it is online training for dummies, that is exactly what the hierarchy think of us, let’s belittle them and not only give them massive caseloads, stress and anxiety for many, but give them the Peppa Pig Production of OFPS, you know the one that teaches experienced practitioners how to suck eggs but also at the same time ‘develop’ the ‘new’ workforce, automatons who do everything by the book, tick all the boxes, have never used professional curiosity, identified disguised compliance or exercised professional judgement without permission of their SPO and spend hours on RMP’s fearing the contact with offenders but talk a good plan and then go off and leave it to the old heads with resilience in abundance and the ability to develop professional meaningful relationships that actually matter.
The probation service that I knew is dead, the new one will not be able to cope with our communities which are declining into serious unlawfulness where the balaclava and [Surron?] rule!
Anon
Withdraw this training now as the only function it would seem to fulfill is a tool with which they will assess your competence following an SFO investigation
ReplyDeleteIt’s called New Ways of Working. It’s really bad — can’t really be called training! Most people just skip through without reading, listening or watching anything and go straight to the knowledge questions. Some were even running the questions through Copilot, then realised they were so easy they didn’t need to
ReplyDelete"Training" broadly means a structured process of developing a skill, capability, or behavior through repeated practice, instruction, or exposure, aimed at improving performance toward a specific goal. The Probation Service hasn't provided actual training for many years and certainly not with this 'New Ways of Working' crap. All they have done since they disbanded the Training Units is to give endless reams of policy updates and make reading it mandatory with the threat of disciplinary action or loss of pay progression.
ReplyDeleteThe “training” is basically a very long-winded way of reading the leaflet back to you. Then there’s a load of unnecessary, overcomplicated changes to supervision that have turned it into a 100% tick-box exercise.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder if OFPS actually stands for Our F*cked Probation Service
So when i started in probation over 10 years ago sitting in on two extremely rudimentary supervision appointments with 2 different officers and 2 different cases was sufficient training for me to go and manage a caseload of 30 cases of all different personalities and offences, ages etc etc. In my 15 month training whilst managing 30 cases I had 2 day motivational interviewing training, 3 day dv training, 4 day sex offender training and that's it a d then could manage the most complex cases. Now all these years later they are finally telling staff how they should talk to offenders, how they should respond,.. Its just a joke, an absolute joke!!! I had imagined when I started my training I would be sitting in watching a qualified officer do intensive work with offenders with a range of personality types, learning styles and that I wouldn't even be allowed to speak to an offender for at least a year. Nope 2 basic 15 minute supervision appts then off you go.. Basically you're qualified..noone gave a shit! Noone gives a shit now - this training is all legal back covering whilst they destroy whats left of the smoking turd that is the probation Service in the uk.
ReplyDeleteOh deary deary me, what a pickle we're all in.
DeleteIn prehistoric times probation officer training entry criteria in England and Wales were strictly governed under a social work framework. To qualify as a probation officer, applicants had to gain entry into a higher education program recognized by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) to obtain the Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW), which included a specialised probation option. Undergraduate applicants needed standard university matriculation requirements (typically 2 to 3 A-Levels or equivalent) to enter a 3- or 4-year undergraduate degree combining a social science discipline with the CQSW. Graduates holding a relevant first degree (such as Sociology, Psychology, or Law) could apply for an accelerated 2-year postgraduate CQSW program. Mature applicants without a degree could apply for a 2-year non-graduate CQSW diploma if they could demonstrate the academic capacity to cope with higher education.
But... Academic qualifications alone were insufficient. Candidates were strictly vetted on their practical experience in social care, voluntary work, or the criminal justice sector.
While applicants were generally required to be at least 20 or 21 years old at the start of training, the Home Office actively encouraged mature applicants, frequently recruiting individuals in their late 20s or 30s who brought broader life experience to the role.
Tuition was funded and candidates would receive a salary/stipend while training. Candidates had to pass a competitive selection process managed by the Home Office, who funded the sponsorship. To this end selection panels evaluated candidates for specific core character traits, including personal resilience, strong communication skills, emotional maturity, and a core belief in rehabilitation. Background checks were also mandatory to ensure suitability for working within the court system.
The artifical thing inside my machine provided the following analysis of that old dinosaur shit:
Training Structure and Context
* Social Work Foundation: Training was firmly rooted in social work discipline and casework models rather than standalone criminal justice curricula.
* Core Philosophy: Officers were trained under the rehabilitative tradition to "advise, assist, and befriend," focusing on personal relationships and domestic/community context.
* Court Preparation: Trainees learned how to interview offenders and compile social background reports (pre-sentence assessments) to guide judicial sentencing.
Sounds to me like them dinosaurs were pretty smart in many ways; but sadly not smart enough to stop the psychobullies in Whitehall nuking the lot & issuing the new Duck & Cover series of online training.
For the uninitiated, "Duck and Cover" is the official method of personal protection against the effects of pretty much, including a nuclear explosion:
"A log, a large rock, or any depression in the earth's surface provides some protection. Close eyes. Remain facedown until the blast wave passes and debris stops falling. Stay calm, check for injury, check for equipment damage, and prepare to continue the mission."
There’s not much of us that remember this history. We’ve fallen a long way. I read this earlier about renewing probation. Complementary of what probation could be but wishful thinking for our era of probation. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02645505261478012
DeleteSad thing is it’s all be said time and time again the direction we should have gone in. Instead here we are with this Mickey Mouse training
DeleteProbation as Social Work https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02645505241241588
Abstract
DeleteIn England and Wales probation was regarded as social work for most of the twentieth century, but some thirty years ago the government rejected this conception. In the context of continuing deliberations about the purpose and character of probation, it is timely to revisit its relationship to social work. It is argued that a principal reason for the politically motivated repudiation of social work was its associations with care, but this rested on confusion about care and a comparable misunderstanding of the concept of control. Appreciation of social context is argued to be fundamental to the work of probation. Social capital is no less important than human capital in achieving desistance. The skills and values of social work continue to inform probation because they match up to the demands of the job. Reaffirming connections between the professions would enhance the policy and practices of both.
Anon 23:19:-
Abstract
Probation in England and Wales has undergone significant reform in recent decades, prompting ongoing discussion about professional identity, practitioner autonomy, and effective practice. Drawing upon probation literature, inspection findings, and contemporary debates, this article examines how professional identity, practitioner autonomy, and relational practice may contribute to the future development of probation. It considers the relationship between organisational structures and rehabilitative practice, the balance between risk management and rehabilitation, and the contribution of relational approaches, community engagement and partnership working to effective community supervision and positive outcomes.
Written in 2016 and a lengthy read, but are we witnessing the end days of probation?
ReplyDeleteProbation was renationalised in June 2021, and the concluding lines of the article reads thus:-
" 100 years ago, T S Eliot published one of the key works of literary modern-ism. By the time the centenary of The Waste Land is celebrated – in 2022 – the proba-tion service may have disappeared and if this is the case we will be in a penal waste land, and that would be a 21st century tragedy. The probation service has been the civilising influence in our criminal justice system and without it we face a bleak future.'
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301237807_'A_difficult_trip_I_think'_The_end_days_of_the_probation_service_in_England_and_Wales
'Getafix
Had difficulty with link so asked AI to help:-
Delete“‘A difficult trip, I think’: The end days of the probation service in England and Wales” is an influential academic journal article written by criminologist Professor Raymond Whitehead. Published in 2016 in European Journal of Probation, the paper critically analyzes the systemic dismantling and existential threats facing the public probation sector following decades of marketization and central management.
Key Themes of the Article The Inspiration Behind the Title:
The phrase "a difficult trip, I think" was a quote from a pessimistic interview with a Chief Probation Officer reflecting on the chaotic trajectory of the agency. The Erosion of a Century-Old Institution: Whitehead charts how a service with over 100 years of history—traditionally more cost-effective and successful at reducing reconviction rates than prison—was systematically undermined.
The Threat of Marketization: The article critically addresses the era of aggressive top-down restructuring, particularly highlighting the anxieties leading up to and surrounding the Coalition Government's controversial "Transforming Rehabilitation" (TR) reforms. These reforms outsourced low-to-medium risk offender management to privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs).
What Happened Next? (The Legacy of the Paper) Whitehead's paper proved to be highly prophetic. The "difficult trip" he described turned into a complete policy disaster: The Private Sector Collapse:
The Transforming Rehabilitation experiment failed dramatically. In 2021, after widespread criticism of private CRCs neglecting basic offender management to maximize profits, the government performed a massive U-turn, abolishing the private contracts and renationalizing the entire probation service back into public hands.
Ongoing Modern Crises: Despite returning to public ownership, the sector continues to experience severe strain. The legacy of these fractured structural reorganizations has left the service battling an intense staffing crisis, high burnout rates, unmanageable caseloads, and emergency closures of essential probation hostels.
I’d like someone to break cover and to let us know WHO signed off on the new way of working and WHY did they think it was a good idea?
ReplyDelete