Probation staff reflective practice: can it impact on outcomes for clients with personality difficulties?

The Government’s Offender Personality Difficulties (OPD) pathway programme began in 2012 with key aims being to reduce reoffending, develop the workforce, and improve psychological well-being and access to services. To support staff containment and facilitate discussion of emotional reactions to the work, group ‘reflective practice spaces’ have been provided for practitioners.

What is currently uncertain is the extent to which the positive impact of such spaces in criminal justice settings is likely to extend, beyond practitioner wellbeing and confidence, to client outcomes. This is of particular relevance following the independent review of the case of Joseph McCann (HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2020) who should have been referred to the OPD pathway but was not. Failures in case management were attributed to a confirmatory bias among staff and lack of any real analysis of his behaviour. Therefore, ten years since the implementation of reflective practice in the OPD pathway, the present chapter examines the literature regarding the impact of staff reflective group practices on outcomes for probation clients; and so determine future directions for research and on-the-ground support for this aspect of the initiative.