Training for a transformed service
| Author | Aileen Watson,Graham Smyth |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0264550517748361 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
Training for a
2018, Vol. 65(1) 61–76
ª The Author(s) 2018
transformed service:
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550517748361
The experience of
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learners in 2016
Graham Smyth
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Aileen Watson
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Abstract
This article explores the training and early practice experience of the first cohort of
probation learners trained under the auspices of ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ (TR). It
draws on interviews with learners qualifying in 2016 in order to examine the ade-
quacy of their training and their early perceptions of delivering TR as qualified
practitioners. While highlighting their training as stressful and noting issues with TR
and some implications of the highly risk-focused nature of NPS work in particular,
participants were generally positive about their training and early post-qualification
experiences. Some inferences are drawn in relation to the future approach to training.
Keywords
probation training, blended learning, Transforming Rehabilitation, probation prac-
tice, probation values
Introduction
At the time of writing, the professional training of probation officers in England and
Wales is into its third version since the move away from the social work qualification
Corresponding Author:
Graham Smyth, Manchester Metropolitan University, Geoffrey Manton Building, Rosamund Street West,
Manchester, M15 6LL, UK.
Email: g.smyth@mmu.ac.uk
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Probation Journal 65(1)
in 1994. The ‘Professional Qualification in Probation’ (PQIP) commenced in 2016,
replacing the ‘Probation Qualification Framework’ (PQF) which in turn succeeded
the Diploma in Probation Studies in 2010. The structure and mode of delivery of the
PQIP (or the final ‘level 6’ qualification within it at any rate) is not dissimilar to that of
the PQF in its latter days.
This article considers the training and early practice experience of learners
completing the PQF in that latter stage and qualifying in 2016 – the first cohort to
have started and finished the PQF under the auspices of ‘Transforming Rehabilita-
tion’ (TR). It examines the adequacy of their training to meet the needs of practice
under TR, and their early perceptions of delivering TR as qualified practitioners. The
writers have an interest in this topic, having been involved in the delivery of the
academic component of the qualification by Sheffield Hallam and Manchester
Metropolitan Universities (MMU). Sheffield Hallam held the contract for delivery of
the PQF across several regions, and – other than in South Yorkshire itself – chose to
deliver the programme in partnership with local universities so as to give students a
reasonably local base for their learning: hence MMU for North West England. One
of the writers (Watson) is now engaged in the delivery of the PQIP, so there is an
extent to which this research will inform future training, though it was also pursued
as part of a wider research interest in the changing context of probation training.
Background
The given rationale for the creation of the PQF in 2010 was to increase the level of
qualification throughout probation so as to equip all staff for their role in risk man-
agement, and to build a quicker and more flexible route to qualification. The Ministry
of Justice’s consultation on the new framework in 2009 stressed ‘the urgency for
qualified practitioners at every level in the National Probation Service subsequent to
the findings of the Sonnex inquiry’ (MoJ, 2009: 5).1 A minimum qualification was
created for probation service officers (PSOs), and the new framework made it far
easier for existing PSOs to undertake the qualification from within their existing
position without sacrificing income or job security. For the probation officer qualifi-
cation, accredited workplace learning would be allied to undertaking an academic
qualification delivered by nominated universities on a ‘blended’ learning basis – i.e.
primarily online but complemented by some face-to-face teaching. The framework
allowed for the qualification to be completed as a three-year degree, or for those
with an existing relevant degree,2 as a 15 month graduate diploma. In the early
years, most learners went through the degree route. From 2015, with probation
organizations critically short of qualified staff as TR got under way, the three-year
degree was abandoned, and the PQF experienced a swansong as three cohorts
(nearly 70 individuals in the North West alone) were put through the graduate
diploma during its final year.
The demands of the changing probation landscape led to a rethink of some of the
academic content of the PQF as delivered prior to the exclusive use of the graduate
diploma. The resulting academic programme is shown in Table 1.
Smyth and Watson
63
Table 1. Module structure of the graduate diploma in probation practice.
Strand
Modules
Principles for Effective
Rehabilitation and recovery (i.e. concerning substance
Practice
misuse and mental health)
Working with difference
Changing Lives
Skills in planning, intervention and review
Positive probation practice (drawing extensively on
desistance research)
Crime and Criminal Justice
Working with violent and sexual offenders
Contexts
Law for probation practice
Learning and Professional
Using research and evaluation in practice
Development
Developing professional practice (a highly reflective module)
Alongside the academic programme, learners were assessed in the workplace for
a Vocational Qualification (VQ) which required them to demonstrate competence in a
range of practice areas such as effective communication, promoting prosocial
behaviour and managing risk. Passes in both the academic and vocational elements
of the programme were required to achieve the professional qualification. This
required a high level of co-operation and co-ordination between the universities
delivering the academic component and NPS staff running the VQ element.
The demands on these learners – all with ostensibly relevant degrees but fre-
quently having no previous experience of working in probation – were consider-
able. It was a feature of working with PQF learners throughout the six years of that
qualification that they harked back to what appeared to them the relatively easy
experience of trainee probation officers (TPOs) on the DiPS – an experience which
had in fact been highlighted by Mawby and Worrall (2011) as highly stressful. PQF
learners, unlike TPOs, carried a substantive probation service officer (PSO) case-
load, along with their work with higher risk cases needed for the PQF. So, on top of
their PSO caseload, they were expected to: learn and begin to deliver the assess-
ment and management of potentially dangerous high risk offenders, along with the
accompanying bureaucracy; and undertake frequent training; undergo assessment
for their vocational qualification (VQ); undertake the equivalent of a full final year’s
study for an honours degree, with the aid of one day a week study leave (assuming
they managed to take that). In these circumstances, the attrition rate was surprisingly
low (just over 5 per cent in the North West).
In terms of probation culture, the adoption of the PQF was arguably less of a shift
than had been the move from a social work qualification to the DiPS. Deering (2010:
9) suggested there had been an intention in that move to recruit from a wider ‘and
implicitly non social work’ base so as to have a workforce more geared up for ‘the
assessment and management of risk and the management of offenders to “protect the
public”, rather than a broader, more traditional aim of rehabilitation’. However, his
research with trainees under that regime found a higher retention of traditional values,
beliefs and aims than government might, in his view, have wished.
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Probation Journal 65(1)
The extent to which those values have survived the enormous structural changes
wrought by TR is a question to be reviewed again, not least in view of Deering and
Feilzer’s assertion (2015: 1) that one of the reasons behind the split was the gov-
ernment’s desire to change the values of the probation service which were ‘deemed
to be too soft on crime’. Mawby and Worrall (2013: 116), while charting an
evolution over time in the motivation and modus operendi of different generations of
probation workers, nevertheless found all to be ‘bound by common values,
including a desire to “make a difference”, a conviction that people can change and
a belief in the worth of working directly with individuals to effect change’. At the
outset of the PQF, however, they anticipated ‘a very different culture emerging,
where the “transformative” nature of training is less marked than it has been to date’
(Mawby and Worrall, 2011: 10).
Unsurprisingly there was an emphasis in the PQF – including its graduate
diploma iteration – on risk assessment and management, but by no means to the
exclusion of values and ethics in the work or positive engagement with service users.
The graduate diploma as delivered by Sheffield Hallam and its partner universities
in North West and North East England, for example, included modules on desis-
tance and recovery-informed...
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