Professional Retreat? Dear Sir
| Published date | 01 September 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058202900336 |
| Author | Tim O'Conner,Claudia Crawley,Bob Halfacre,Ted Bailey,Diana Gray,John Goode,Tony Goodman |
| Date | 01 September 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
119
involving
specialist
posts
(not
roles),
area
policy
papers
and
the
pushing
of
clients
through
(often
authoritarian)
pro-
cesses
without
giving
them
a
service
and
meeting
their
needs
is
to
move
away
from
probation
as
a
client
oriented
social
work
agency
towards
the
punitive
arm
of
the
criminal
justice
system
which
will
sell
out
clients
and
ultimately
leave
them
untouched.
A
shame,
Bill
McWilliams?
Well
at
least
you
seek
guidance
as
to
why
your
principles
may
serve
the
New
Orthodoxy,
but
your
cry
for
unifying
aims
for
the
service
including
the
surveillance
of
offenders
surely
drops
neatly
into
the
Dave
Burnham
scenario.
A
way
forward
is
indeed
difficult
to
envisage,
but
must
entail
the
defence
of
the
client-centred
social
work
system,
and
the
resistance
to
specialist
posts,
process
and
hierarchy.
I
wonder,
as
H.
A.
Thomas
can’t
see
the
link
between
hierarchial
line
management
and
the
single
salary
scale,
can
we
perhaps
count
on
his
vote
when
the
issue
re-emerges?
Yours
sincerelv
H.
J.
DAVIES
Probation
Officer,
Manchester
...
and
the
last
word?
Dear
Sir,
I
did
not
mean
to
irritate
Bill
McWilliams
and
Howard
Thomas
with
my
gloomy
and
doctrinaire
views
about
the
structure
of
the
Probation
Service,
and
I
certainly
shall
not
irritate
further
by
rising
to
Bill’s
bait
and
offering
him
an
All-Embracing
Solution.
But
I
shall
reassert
my
main
conten-
tion
that
managing
any
social
work
ser-
vice
with
instructions
about
style
and
direction
of
work
emanating
from
the
centre
is
not
the
way
to
encourage
initiative
amongst
workers
on
the
ground,
or
enhance
any
service
provided
to
con-
sumers.
There
is
literature
on
manage-
ment
techniques
that
confirms
this
obvious
point
and
suggests
that
people
work
most
efficiently,
productively
and
happily
in
groups
of
about
ten,
when
they
have
control
over
the
structure,
content
and
style
of
their
work
and
if
they
have
a
say
in
when
they
work
and
who
they
work
with.
I
would
urge
both
Bill
and
Howard
to
read
the
work
of
McRae
(especially
his
recent
article
in
the
Economist,
17.4.82)
and
R.
W.
Revans
(especially
Action
Learning
in
Hospitals:
Diagnosis
and
Therapy,
McGraw
and
Hill,
1976).
These
stimulating
works
are
of
real
per-
tinence
to
this
debate
and
would
be
of
interest
to
anyone
concerned
about
probation.
Yours
sincerely
D.
M.
BURNHAM
Manchester
Heirs
to
a
Heritage
Dear
Sirs,
At
a
time
when
our
Association
is
negotiating
the
withdrawal
of
seconded
probation
officers
from
prison
establish-
ments,
I
would
invite
members
to
reflect
on
the
path
which
eventually
led
to
pro-
bation
officers
taking
up
that
challenge.
We
are
heirs
to
a
heritage
which
in-
cludes
the
labours
of
the
early
reformers,
the
Prison
Gate
Missionaries
of
the
nine-
teenth
century
and
the
hard
slog
by
the
workers
of
the
National
Association
of
Discharged
Prisoners’
Aid
Society.
They
firmly
established
the
right
of
a
prisoners
access
to
a
concerned
person
within
the
prison,
one
who
was
not
primarily
responsible
for
maintaining
their
capti-
vity
and
trained
to
look
beyond
the
immediate
problems
of the
institution.
The
role
of
the
prison
probation
officer
is
hardly
twenty
years
old.
Perhaps
we
should
question
our
right
to
relinquish
an
unfulfilled
task
after
such
a
short
endeavour?
Have
we
the
right
to
select
our
successors?
If,
in
achieving
our
own
goals,
we
fail
to
guarantee
the
rights
of
our
clients
we
shall
be
denying
a
morally
inescanable
responsibility.
Yours
sincerely
PETER
M.
STURGE
Probation
Officer,
Surrey
Professional
Retreat?
Dear
Sir,
We,
probation
officers
employed
in
Holloway
prison,
are
extremely
con-
cerned
with
the
position
NAPO
is
taking
with
regard
to
the
withdrawal,
of
seconded
probation
officers
working
in
prisons.
Whilst
probation
officer
training
would
not
enable
us
to
take
on
the
security
and
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