Some Idle Thoughts of a Fledgling Warden
| Date | 01 September 1982 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058202900306 |
| Published date | 01 September 1982 |
| Author | Jo Lock |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Some Idle Thoughts of a
Fledgling Warden
Jo Lock
SPO Warden, Hampshire
The author’s account of the life and troubles at a bail hostel
provides an insight into residential social work which is often
missed in the text books. Hostel life is rarely tidy and neatly
packaged. One thing leads to another and as crises fall thick
and fast it is the staff who have to pick up the pieces and
face the consequences.
Life at a probation hostel can appear
are arrested, but several hours later CID
to be stranger than fiction but the follow-
telephone-they are not admitting to it
ing description is not fictitious. Dickson
and they have no evidence to hold them.
House Bail Hostel exists and in the
’What about fingerprints,’ I ask. ’We only
following stories any resemblance to
found yours,’ says DC Wagstaff.
members of staff and residents is purely
The same week, an eighty-five year old
intentional.
woman is
mugged right outside the
hostel. She is in hospital with a broken
*
* *
collarbone. The lad comes from a middle
’Did you, er-did you choose to go
class background, a first offender, charged
into the Bail Hostel?’ colleagues ask
with a relatively trivial offence.
with a quizzical look. ’It’s a wonderful
jobs,’ I reply, bouncing around with a
Crabs don’t live in baths
gleam in my eye. ’If you really want to
Five weeks later-’Did you, er-did
see social work in action, then come to
you choose to go into the Bail Hostel?’
Dickson House.’
colleagues still ask. ’It’s good fun,’ I say
doubtfully, ’It’s a sort of armpit of the
Probation
Service!’
Lisa
has
just
It’s a sort of armpit for the Pro-
appeared at the door,
&dquo;Scuse me miss,
bation Service.
there’s crabs in the bath.’ ’Don’t be silly
dear, you can’t see crabs and they don’t
It’s
Friday,
13th
November!
A
live in the bath,’ I replied abstractedly,
resident reports to Liz, duty staff mem-
trying to write my first report for the
ber, that two of our residents have
House Committee.
stolen a Spastic Society...
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