The European survey of probation staff’s knowledge of, and attitudes to, mental illness
| Author | Charlie Brooker,Karen Tocque |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20662203231162741 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
Original Article
European Journal of Probation
2023, Vol. 15(1) 71–90
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/20662203231162741
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The European survey of
probation staff’s knowledge of,
and attitudes to, mental illness
Charlie Brooker
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Karen Tocque
University of Chester, UK
Abstract
There is a high prevalence of mental health disorders on probation staffs’caseloads.
Approximately 40% of all clients will have a mental health disorder often compounded by
drug or alcohol problems. It is therefore important that a probation officer can recognise
mental illness and refer to the appropriate local agency. It is therefore important to know
how much probation staff understand about mental illness. The Mental Health Literacy
Scale (MHLS) was distributed to probation staff in all countries registered as membe rs of
the Confederation of Europe. In this paper, overall average scores for the MHLS for each
country are presented. Factors which help to explain the variation in scores are also
examined such a caseload size and gender of staff member. The results are discussed
within the context of a possible European curriculum for probation training. Proba tion
(CEP) organisation.
Keywords
Mental illness, knowldege, Europe, probation, attutudes
Background
The prevalence of mental health disorders in probation is high much higher than in the
general population. Indeed, two robust studies have estimated that mental health disorders
affect 40% of the probation population (Brooker et al., 2012;Lurigio et al., 2003). Suicide
is also more prevalent within probation populations than both prisons and the general
Corresponding author:
Charlie Brooker, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, London TW20 0EX, UK.
Email: Charlie.Brooker@rhul.ac.uk
population (Philips et al., 2018). This study in England showed that suicide rates also vary
by gender. The rate per 100,000 of the population for men 105 and for women 145 compares,
respectively, 5.6/100,000 and 29.2/100,000 for men and women in the general population.
There are, therefore, compelling reasons why probation staff should be able to recognise
mental health disorders and refer on appropriately to community-based mental health
services or even refer to acute psychiatric care. In one of the prevalence studies cited above
(Brooker et al., 2012), the probation records of those identified with a mental health disorder
were examined. The researchshowed that probation staffrecognised 64% ofmood disorders;
37% of anxiety disorders; 36% of psychotic disorders and 10% of likely personality dis-
orders. Staff, however, were much better at recognising alcohol and drug use (identifying
88% and 77% of these, respectively). Perhaps the especially worrying aspect of these
findings is that only one-third of psychosis cases were recognised. It is difficult to know
whether thesefindings would be replicated across the 47 Countries/Jurisdictions of Europe.
Although a recent European survey for the Council of Europe established that just 37% of
probationservices acrossEurope prepared stafffor the mental healthissues they might come
across in practice compared to 74% of prisons (Brooker and Monteiro, 2021). There w as a
caveat to these findings. A number of countries indicated that mental health awareness
training was not required, as training for core discipline required to be a probation officer,
included mental health. One example of this was in Berlin (Germany) which stated that:
‘….only state-certified social workers, special educators and psychologists are employed in
the probation service, who already have the necessary knowledge and appropriate awareness
of the topic of mental health due to their training. Routine training for employees is therefore
not required’
Another theme arising from the qualitativedata in this section was the ‘non-mandatory’
nature of training that was on offer after qualifying as a probation officer (this included:
Denmark, Brandenburg (G), Hesse (G), Nordrhein-Westfalen (G), Schelswig-Holstein (G),
Scotland and France. In other countries, training is either mandatory or part of the initial
probation officertraining (Austria, England, Malta, Northern Ireland, Romaniaand Spain).
Some countries described the content of training but only England and France cited ‘the
prevention of suicide’as an important area to cover. In the Czech Republic, the main focus
was on drug addiction. Most countries used external training providers apart from Baden-
Wurttemberg (G) who used their specialist mental health trained probation staff:
‘Probation staff can receive intern or extern trainings. Intern we provide further training on
the topic “Clients with mental disorders”. Probation officers have also the possibility to take
individual supervision. Every of our 9 facilities has a probation officer with special skills in
this subject. This specialized probation officer can advise colleagues or organizes trainings’
Finally, several countries mentioned the importance of teaching about commonly
prescribed psychotropic drugs and their side effects (Belgium and Northern Ireland).
Recent research in Ireland (Power, 2020) has shown that when asked to make estimates
of those people on probation caseloads with a mental health disorder, staff struggled:
72 European Journal of Probation 15(1)
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