Any Probation Officers here? Advice on training to be a Probation Officer needed.

[Tiny2018]

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to get some advice from anyone who has experience with the Probation Service, specifically training. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I currently work in a Care Home, both in the kitchen and on the nursing side of care 3/4 days a week. This fits around my youngets sons (10) schooling. Since I went back and completed Higher Education (received an upper 2:1 Degree, did go on to do Masters in Criminal Justice but lockdown affected me badly and had not long left an abusive relationship so I quit with around 4 months left to go), I have wanted to go into the Probation Service. Not long after quitting my Masters Degree, my son asked to come and live with me (his Fatger was controlling and took him with him after the split) so I took on the Care job as it fit perfectly around his school hours. I also have a 15 year old who is particularly challenging at the moment and am set to complete a house swap in June.

So. After a few glasses of wine some time last year I applied via email to be notified of when the next Trainee Probation Programme was running in my area. I received an email around a month ago notifying me that applications were open, but I thought with the move and having my son almost full time, not possible right now and thought no more of it. However, today I have received another email saying that they are extending applications until Sunday as there are still positions to be filled. I feel I would have to be a special kind of stupid to pass up the opportunity to at least apply now.

So, as aforementioned, I'm after any advice regarding the Trainee Programme, what hours I'd likely be doing if accepted, if it would be feasible, in others opinions, to juggle this with everything else I have going on, transport required etc (I currently dont drive but have had a ridiculous amount of lessons so hopefully wouldn't take long to pass my test). I feel as much as my job gets me by for now, I am simply too driven and motivated to want to make a change to offenders lives to carry on plodding away as I am.

Hi I am a Probation Officer. What sort of weekly hours to you work currently?

As a PQuip (trainee) you would be working full time however that would include study time, for instance you would have one day per week as a 'study day' which is protected time. In addition the workload itself when you begin to take on cases is heavily protected and if you have say a parole report due, then other pieces of work will be batted off by your SPO (senior probation officer).

They have been looking at whether to be able to offer the PQuip part time but I'm not sure how much traction that has

If you couldn't finish aspects of your study, including the vq, during the allocated study time you would be expected to work in your own time.

It is full on, but not in the same way as someone holding cases once they're qualified so in my opinion it is doable if you feel you have the headspace and can largely commit to the full time structure.

If not, they run recruitment campaigns approx twice yearly currently now so there is always next time when you may feel more settled in your personal life after moving.

Vetting takes months, so even if you applied and got it not, you wouldn't start for months after

I think it's about 6 months from applying to starting. You'd be working full time typical hours 9-5 with one study dsy for you to do your uni work - obvs youd have to do additional reading etc which would probably take more than that one day a week.

As it's civil service it's manageable though, as you're training your caseload is capped as well so while it's full on it's good for work-life balance and you can make use of flexitime and WFH etc.

Cases are capped when in training with social workers and probation officers.
However when your qualified, your cases aren't capped.
Really look into peoples experiences.
I know a social worker who left her job to work at Aldi and a Probation officer who left to be a teaching assistant. The constant unmanageable work load was too much.

My husband is a PSO (so not a fully qualified probation officer but does similar work with low to medium risk offenders). He has been off with anxiety twice in the past 3 years. While his managers have been sympathetic and supportive, it's the nature of the work that has caused it. He's now been transferred to a court team full time which is much better as he doesn't have a caseload to manage. There is such a high sickness rate where he is, so many people with stress/burn out, I imagine the caseloads really aren't safe. So from an outsiders perspective I wouldn't recommend offender managing!

The Flexi working of the civil service is fantastic though, especially as I work shifts.

@WhiteBricks

My husband is a PSO (so not a fully qualified probation officer but does similar work with low to medium risk offenders). He has been off with anxiety twice in the past 3 years. While his managers have been sympathetic and supportive, it's the nature of the work that has caused it. He's now been transferred to a court team full time which is much better as he doesn't have a caseload to manage. There is such a high sickness rate where he is, so many people with stress/burn out, I imagine the caseloads really aren't safe. So from an outsiders perspective I wouldn't recommend offender managing!

The Flexi working of the civil service is fantastic though, especially as I work shifts.

I agree 100% with this. Staff sickness levels are through the roof which then puts pressure on the rest of the team as the work doesn't stop. People currently have caseloads of 35-55 people which is absolutely ridiculous.

People do often leave to go to the courts because you don't have a caseload, literally write a report and that's the last you see of that person.

Also people have left to go and work in places like Debenhams and I'm sure the pay for being a manager at somewhere like M&S wouldn't be too far off current PO pay scales!

You truly don't get paid enough for the work you put in & I think you have to be quite a strong and resilient person to know when enough is enough and to stop working/doing overtime/stressing out etc as it's really not good for your health.

People are mistaken if they think Court is easier than Offender Management. I work in a Court Team and am frequently left on my own with multiple courtrooms running, 30+ pre booked hearings and overnight custody cases to deal with. That’s without even touching adjourned report interviews for the more serious cases that go to to Crown Court. The team I am in is horrendously understaffed and I am doing 45-50 hours per week.