Context
Trauma-informed practice (TIP) originated in healthcare organisations but is now increasingly being adopted by a range of frontline services, including in the criminal justice system. Generally, trauma-informed services do not offer treatment for trauma but provide services that recognise people are likely to have experienced trauma and adversity. Principles of TIP were developed to improve staff knowledge about the impact of trauma, how it manifests in behaviour, and to develop organisational culture and practices that ensures a person’s trauma does not impede their access to services. This bulletin explores the experiences of staff working with trauma in adult probation.
Approach
The findings are based upon interviews with probation practitioners and managers in England. Twenty-seven individual interviews and two focus groups with a total of eleven participants were conducted between April and November 2021. Additionally, to inform this study, researchers examined training materials and other TIP resources that have been developed by participants in the study. Researchers were also able to participate in a ‘Becoming Trauma-Informed’ training session for probation court staff.
Key findings and implications
• There are pockets of practice throughout the Probation Service that unquestionably meet the ‘criteria’ of TIP. Importantly, much of this work is with the most vulnerable people on probation; women, young adults, and those with mental health and/or personality disorder diagnoses.
• Staff identified a number of benefits of using TIP for themselves and those with whom they work. In particular, trauma-informed approaches feel intuitive, improve job satisfaction, can help overcome the dissonance between personal and professional values and organisational demands, can help create a meaningful working relationship between the practitioner and the person on probation, and they provide a more humane lens through which to redefine the more punitive aspects of practice.
• Formal training, clinical supervision, knowledgeable and committed line management, and buy-in from senior leaders were identified as important in providing support to staff using TIP and there were strong examples of this in practice, particularly for those working with individuals screened into the personality disorder pathway. Overall, however, staff felt the professional culture in probation encourages work practices that can result in vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burnout, and that staff wellbeing is not prioritised.
• Most staff believed the Probation Service can become a trauma-informed organisation, but that there are at present significant barriers to progress. These include the challenges of reconciling TIP within a system of punishment, processes being prioritised over people, lingering organisational cultures of fear, shame, and blame, a lack of knowledge and genuine buy-in from senior leaders, unmanageable workloads, and the continued dominance of the risk management paradigm.
ORCID: 
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)