Grace Under Pressure: The Role of Courage in the Future of Probation Work

Abstract

This article, based on the 18th Annual Bill McWilliams Memorial Lecture, explores the concept of 'civil courage' and its role in the future of probation work. The reader is invited temporarily to suspend their justifiable cynicism about the politics of probation and to examine how 'nostalgia' -the recollection of past good -can be used to build future cultures and identities that are recognisably 'probation work', regardless of the organisational environment in which they are located. Drawing on recent research projects, the work of others and the emergence of the Probation Institute, I suggest that probation workers engage with courage in what has been termed 'edgework' in other contexts. Controlling the boundary between order and chaos through voluntarily testing one's values, knowledge and skills to their limits and thus experiencing the satisfaction of success in the face of predicted failure, may be one characteristic of courageous probation work.

Probation migration(s): Examining occupational culture in a turbulent field

“…These processes underline the observation that the importance of probation lies in the values that it represents as much as what it technically is. We are confident that those workers employed within the new organisational arrangements will continue to practise in a ‘civilly courageous’ manner (Worrall, 2015: 509) and hope that the new owners will be sympathetic to this. Our concern is that although the organisational values adopted by the owners of the CRCs may well seek to embrace the best traditions of probation practice, ultimately altruistic public service may only be actively supported if aligned to other commercial imperatives.…”

Running on the treadmill: Practitioner experiences of mass supervision

“…This led to the hope that CRCs would have the most scope to undertake ‘edgework’ in practice (Burke and Collett, 2015). Worrall (2015) describes edgework as the opportunity for probation workers to put their skills to the test and have creative freedom in their supervisory relationships. One of the principal means of innovating probation work in the case study area involved re-organising the areas’ entire caseload (approximately 20,000 individuals) into five categories, with practitioners working within one of the five cohorts:1.…”

Reflections on undertaking the Probation Qualifying Framework scheme during the Transforming Rehabilitation changes

“…Recent academic research has re-imagined TR as an opportunity to reconfigure 'edgework' in practice (Worrall, 2015). While a laudable aim that should be encouraged -and I was lucky enough to have an excellent, highly skilled practice training assessor who constantly challenged me to reflect on my practice -I felt that the PQF training did not lend itself to supporting trainees to display 'civil courage' (Ibid).…”