To try to raise awareness of the shocking state of the Probation Service?

[ScaryTimes]

I’ve name changed for this for fear of being sacked, so that tells you a lot about the Probation Service already.

In June (or possibly July) a Probation Officer was stabbed at an office near to me. She was very lucky to have survived and is not recovered, as far as she will ever be able to. A “full review” was due in August which was released in October and NOTHING has changed. We work with some of the most dangerous people in the country and I think most people would be shocked to hear we have NO security guards, NO metal detectors, NO bag searches, NO training in how to respond to a situation like this. All we have is CCTV and panic alarms. I’ve just received an email that the inevitable has happened and another Probation Officer has been stabbed at work.

Like the previous incident, I’m sure this will be played down and ignored. The first incident barely made the news.

At the same time, the endless prison release schemes are adding unmanageable pressure to the Probation Service. Everyone I know is beyond stressed and burnt out, we’re running on fumes. We are also 10000 out of 17000 officers short and staff retention is impossible. Many staff have a 160% caseload!! We are regularly working at night and weekends to try to meet targets as we get in trouble if we don’t.

Of course all other services are struggling so we are not able to help with things like housing, mental health support, drug and alcohol services, which is making the people we supervise angry and when they have nothing to lose, they don’t care if they go to prison.

To top it all off, our annual pay deal ran out this year and the unions have been trying to sort a new one for 11 months but the government and HMPPS are ignoring them completely. We should have had an annual pay rise in October, backdated to April but we’ve had nothing and no sign of anything. Some support staff will be on minimum wage, if that (obviously if that’s the case something will have to be done) once the new minimum wage starts.

So yeah, it’s all a very big mess and there is very little media interest in it.

@Slummyslimmer95 We’ve had no info about this week’s attack at all, I only know about it from a NAPO email. I’m local to the Preston one so we had more communication but it’s been so played down. We were also told not to speak to the press or share a petition for our security on FB etc. The fact that it’s only ever referred to a “the Preston incident” says a lot. I’ve personally witnessed a knife attack outside our office and I rang 999, no one followed up to ask what happened or check if I and my colleagues were OK.

”Promoting positivity” 🙈🙈 we’re all out of positivity!

All of the changes have made things harder and harder and all come with multiple forms to fill in (as you will well know of course) but it’s just less and less time with the people on probation and more and more time filling in forms. I do love working with the people too and I have fab colleagues but the rest ruins it.

That's standard really, but scary when it happens s

Op i hear you. Im one too. Absolutely horrified that the response to 2 officers being stabbed is: make sure you do your training. They are utter tit's and don't even stay past 5pm and leave us officers to fend for ourselves.

@wizzywig the training that we need doesn’t exist though! A local officer liaised with a trainer from a local prison who does restraint/ de-escalation training and they offered the training for free. I’m not sure if it would have involved going to the prison or them coming out to offices but the powers that be said there wasn’t a need for it 😵😵. This was right after the Preston incident.

@ScaryTimes makes you realise what they think of us

Link to what happened how is this not national news?? And why am I reading what actually happened on social media instead of being informed by the Probation Service? 😡😡😡

Thanks for posting. It's interesting to hear about things we might not know about.
The prison service is in a bad state too. Apparantely prisons are very understaffed.

Another service that’s fucked and no one knows, is the coroners service. One London coroners court has a backlog of 3000 bodies. The “hidden” public services are in an absolute state and the only one people care about is the NHS. It’s a shit show

@Netcurtainnelly they certainly are, which is why people are being released early or given community orders. Of course then they come to Probation and the we’re the end of the line we can’t say we’re full, we just have to keep taking more and more people.

@Bonden wow that’s a lot but not surprising sadly.

Omg that sounds horrendous. So sorry for what you're going through. Can you anonymously send your account to your local BBC news team, Panorama, C4 News etc...? Feels like tye only way anything changes is when the cold light of publicity is shone on an issue.

The unions have tried going to the press but no one cares because most people aren’t directly (or knowingly) affected by the Probation Service.

It’s getting worse and worse, we have so many people off sick with stress and the rest of us are drowning.

At least we finally get a pay rise this month, 13 months late!

I work in a very closely related sector and think it’s horrendous.

Think there's a new series on iPlayer about probation service. Can't think of the name right now, but check it out

I’m sorry to hear about this. A vital but inviisable role that benefits all of us every single day. You deserve better

Thanks for the heads-up, @HalfMoonRising .

It must be this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002wlnd/carl-frampton-on-probation

Some episodes still showing on BBC 1 Northern Ireland on Monday, 25th May at 10:30 pm & Wed 27th May at 10:40 p.m.

Sorry to hear this.

absolutely shocking there is at least no metal detector coming in. Awful what happened to that probation officer and good to see a hefty sentence was imposed but more needs to be done.

I wanted to be a probation officer when I was doing my criminal justice degree. I do think i’d have enjoyed working with offenders. I am a public servant, but I don’t work directly with the public.

Someone i worked with went to Manchester to join the probation service.

Killed himself 6 months later.

Just refuse to do the job..

You'd enjoy working with offenders 🫪🫪

Yes, why do you think anyone goes into that kind of career, certainly not for the money. Admin and caseload aside, i’m sure it can be a rewarding career to see offenders turn their life around. Of course not all, but the kind of person I am, I know i’d have enjoyed that kind of work.

I worked in homelessness prevention and resettlement for several years and worked with quite a few clients who were coming out of prison. Several of them were among the most pleasant clients I've worked with. They were almost all polite, pleasant, respectful and very appreciative of the help they got.

We didn't work with any that were considered high risk though, they might well be a different kettle of fish.

Probation staff do a fantastic job, imo, and it's rarely recognised.

Jesus. That is bloody awful and so sad.

I’m not surprised, I’ve been suicidal myself this year. The only way I’ve pulled myself through was time off that o didn’t want to have to have, hefty antidepressants and just taking a step back and seeing it not as a job, which again I don’t want to do because o do genuinely care but the Probation service make it impossible!