It’s a Balancing Act: Working With Trauma in Probation Practice.

The lived experiences of people on probation and the practitioners working with them shape the way in which individuals perceive the world and how they behave (Bradley,
2021). These lived experiences can include exposure to trauma (Zelechoski, 2016, Komarovskaya et al. 2011). In recent years there has been a growing acknowledgment of the relationship between trauma and offending behaviour, with attention being drawn to the lack of research into how such knowledge has been translated into probation practice (Senker et al, 2023). This thesis aims to address some of these knowledge gaps by examining the views of probation practitioners regarding trauma and the use of trauma informed approaches within sentence management functions of probation. The study uses data generated from a mixed method approach consisting of thirty-three completed online surveys and fourteen semi-structured individual interviews producing qualitative data.

First, the findings indicate that the Probation Service is in the early stages of its journey to becoming a trauma responsive organisation. It is proposed that trauma informed practice offers the probation service an opportunity to reduce the discord between the personal values that motivate many practitioners to choose probation as a career and the neoliberalist agenda that has focused on performance and targets, rather than people on probation (Whitehead, 2007). The findings emphasise that whilst there is some evidence of trauma informed methods being used, these have not been applied authentically, and in many instances, are little more than a ‘tick box’ activity. Furthermore, there is clear evidence from the findings that the application of trauma informed approaches in probation thus far has resulted in a genderised approach to trauma rather than achieving the gender responsivity that trauma informed practice aims to achieve (Bloom, Owen and Covington, 2003). The findings provide overwhelming evidence that men’s experiences of trauma are largely overlooked by the probation service.
The findings indicate that the responsibilisation of crime, from collective to individual responsibility (Phillips et al, 2022), has been transferred to practitioners. Despite operating under an increasingly managerialist agenda that has reduced practitioner autonomy, practitioners are becoming increasingly responsibilised for their own learning and development and for working in a trauma informed manner. In addition, there was clear evidence that the impact of working with trauma on practitioners has been largely neglected.

Lastly, the findings highlight the difficulties encountered by practitioners in balancing the victim-offender dichotomy and this is exemplified by the lack of adequate training, support and guidance provided by the organisation.
The thesis is underpinned by the view that trauma informed practice should be considered an extension of anti-oppressive practice (Thompson, 2014) and emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983, Westaby, Fowler and Phillips, 2019) and that in doing so, both people on probations and practitioners experiences can be improved through the development of a framework of Trauma Informed Probation Practice (TIPP).