Reflections on undertaking the Probation Qualifying Framework scheme during the Transforming Rehabilitation changes

Abstract

Full bibliographic details must be given when referring to, or quoting from full items including the author's name, the title of the work, publication details where relevant (place, publisher, date), pagination, and for theses or dissertations the awarding institution, the degree type awarded, and the date of the award.

Training for a transformed service

“…Reviewing the responses of this, admittedly small, sample of the first post-TR cohort of PQF graduates, there is little evidence of the ‘culture of punitiveness’ predicted by Cracknell (2016). Much more evident were the positive ‘common values’ which Mawby and Worrall (2013) considered to bind previous generations of probation training.…”

“…The key difference for those involved in the final year of the graduate diploma was the professional context in which they were engaged and for which they were training. Organizationally there was, and continues to be, significant disruption to service delivery occasioned by the probation split, as charted by Cracknell (2016) and HMIP (2016), along with a widespread sense of loss, akin to grieving, for what had gone before (Robinson et al, 2016). In terms of the work for which they were preparing, most of those on the diploma were headed for the 'relentless' (Phillips et al, 2016) high risk work entailed in a National Probation Service (NPS) caseload.…”

“…Writing about his experience of going through the PQF during TR, Cracknell (2016: 216) suggests that the prioritization given to public protection during his training is liable to ‘foster a culture of punitiveness’. He notes that the compression of training under the graduate diploma potentially denies trainees the time and space to thoroughly learn their craft, hence promoting more defensive, and by implication more punitive, practice.…”

Facilitators of probation-based domestic violence perpetrator programmes: ‘Who’s in the room?’

“…While the National Probation Service (NPS) was far from ideal, CRC staff were more likely to provide negative responses regarding their working conditions and prospects. Nevertheless, the negative impacts amongst NPS and CRC practitioners were both foreseen (Evans, 2016; McDermott, 2016; Robinson, 2014) and have since been confirmed (Burke et al, 2020; Cracknell, 2016; Dominey, 2016; Kay, 2016; Phillips et al, 2016).…”

‘Guys, get your guns out!’ – An autobiographical account of a US community corrections training academy

“…Harker and Worrall (2011) make brief mention of a three-month Western Australian probation training academy in their overview of professionalisation shifts; however, they do not explore the academy curriculum or its acculturation rituals in depth. Similar to and in some ways inseparable from the occupational culture literature I discuss below, most probation training scholarship comes from the UK (Cracknell, 2016; Deering, 2010; Grant, 2016; Smyth and Watson, 2016) which, though valuable, might not capture elements more distinctive to US jurisdictions, such as firearms use and arrest procedures embedded in a law enforcement and public protection milieu. Inasmuch as we do appear to share in the stresses associated with lurching towards and resisting risk management, the UK story of durable welfare-oriented practice is quite different from the one I tell here.…”