1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:06,240 Welcome to Probation Perspectives insights into 2 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:08,920 Community Justice, the podcast where we dive into the world of 3 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:11,440 probation, rehabilitation and community justice. 4 00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:14,600 Each episode we explore the themes, challenges and skills 5 00:00:14,600 --> 00:00:16,640 that underpin effective probation practise. 6 00:00:17,240 --> 00:00:19,920 Whether you're just starting out on the P quip, have years of 7 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:22,600 experience in the field, or are simply curious about the 8 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:25,840 criminal justice system, this podcast is your space for 9 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:29,200 practical insights, expert perspectives, and meaningful 10 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,240 conversations. In today's episode, we're joined 11 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:34,920 by Doctor Madeleine Petrillo, an associate professor in 12 00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:37,800 criminology whose work explores trauma informed approaches and 13 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:40,880 assistance, particularly in relation to women in the 14 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,720 criminal justice system. I don't think there's an area of 15 00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,000 probation practise where we shouldn't be applying trauma 16 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,520 informed approaches. All probation work involves 17 00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:54,280 engaging people who've experienced trauma inactivity 18 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:59,280 that could be re traumatising. I think good probation work has 19 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:02,040 to be trauma informed. We talked with Madeleine about 20 00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:05,600 the realities faced by women in the criminal justice system, the 21 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:09,280 importance of recognising trauma in probation practise and the 22 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,440 innovative work being done through One Small Things Hope St 23 00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:16,240 project. Hope St is trauma informed in 24 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:20,040 its entirety, so a really pioneering element of it is that 25 00:01:20,320 --> 00:01:24,440 they Co produced the design of the building with women who'd 26 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:26,800 been impacted by the criminal justice system. 27 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:30,600 The workshop. What does trust look like in a 28 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:32,600 building? What does safety look like? 29 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:35,640 It's a thoughtful and informative conversation that 30 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,200 challenges us to reimagine how the principles of trauma 31 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:40,920 informed approaches can be built into probation practise. 32 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:44,400 Before we begin, please be aware that this episode includes 33 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:47,600 discussions of sexual violence and abuse, which some listeners 34 00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:50,720 may find distressing. Please take care while listening 35 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:53,080 and feel free to pause or step away if you need to. 36 00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:55,920 Let's get into our conversation with Madeline. 37 00:02:06,500 --> 00:02:08,900 Welcome, Madeline. Thank you so much for joining us 38 00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:11,820 on today's podcast. Would you be able to introduce 39 00:02:11,820 --> 00:02:14,780 yourself and tell us a bit about your background and your current 40 00:02:14,780 --> 00:02:16,960 work? Yeah, thanks very much for 41 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:19,080 having me on. My name is Madeleine Petrillo. 42 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:22,160 I'm an associate professor in criminology at the University of 43 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:25,120 Greenwich. But in my previous life I was a 44 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,160 probation officer. I worked in probation for 11 45 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:32,040 years, mainly in London. I did a two year stint in 46 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:36,480 downvue women's prison and a year in New Zealand. 47 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,600 But throughout my probation career I specialised in work 48 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:46,720 with women and at high risk men and then during my time as a 49 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:50,520 probation officer I did my Master's that looked at how 50 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:54,360 gender issues play out in supervision for women officers 51 00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,880 who are supervising men who've perpetrated sexual and violent 52 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,080 offences. After that I came to the 53 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:04,520 University of Portsmouth and LED the Pequip programme for around 54 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:09,320 7 years and during that time did my PhD which was a gender and 55 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:12,320 trauma informed analysis of women's efforts to move away 56 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:17,040 from crime after prison. And since then, my work's 57 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,760 focused on trauma informed approaches to rehabilitation, 58 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:24,440 including examining trauma informed interventions in 59 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:27,640 prison, the implementation of trauma informed practise in 60 00:03:27,640 --> 00:03:31,200 probation and most recently I've been working with Hope St in 61 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:34,680 Southampton, which is a trauma informed residential alternative 62 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:37,800 to custody for women impacted by the justice system. 63 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,280 Lovely, thank you. Yeah, sounds really interesting. 64 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:44,400 You might have covered it a little bit, but what really LED 65 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:47,320 you to focusing on doing research around women in trauma 66 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,440 informed practise and approaches? 67 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:52,200 Yeah. So I think trauma informed 68 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:55,960 approaches is quite new language for probation. 69 00:03:56,200 --> 00:04:01,000 But my interest in it started from the very first person I 70 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,480 supervised as a trainee probation officer and she was 71 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:10,600 called Bintu and she had been allocated to me for an offensive 72 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:13,320 theft from employer. She'd stolen like £50 from 73 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:16,079 Sainsbury's where she was working at the time and she was 74 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:22,040 on six months supervision order. And when she told me her story, 75 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:28,160 I was just overwhelmed with a sense of injustice that she'd 76 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:31,200 ended up on probation. So what had happened was that 77 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:35,440 she'd was a refugee from Sierra Leone. 78 00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:39,480 She'd fled the war there with her three very young children. 79 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:43,920 They were all underage. She'd found it really hard to 80 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:47,680 set herself up in the UK. She'd finally been found a job 81 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:49,520 and set settled down a little bit. 82 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:53,600 Then there were some problems with her immigration status 83 00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:57,680 which meant that some of her benefits stopped and she was 84 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:00,040 only allowed to work a certain amount of hours, which wasn't 85 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,960 enough for to cover the costs for herself and her children. 86 00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:06,360 And this is what led to her committing this theft from 87 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,600 employer. And she'd undergone so much 88 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:14,400 trauma in her home country. A lot of her family members had 89 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:18,120 been killed. She'd been raped by men in the 90 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:21,280 military. She'd had to flee and leave what 91 00:05:21,280 --> 00:05:23,320 was left of her family behind with her children. 92 00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:28,120 And after all of that, she ended up on probation for this theft 93 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:33,360 of £50 and it it just stuck with me so much that it was a really 94 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:37,000 helpless situation that I found myself in with her. 95 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,640 Like there was nothing I could do really to help her deal with 96 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:43,640 the issues that had brought her onto probation. 97 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:49,640 It was just really frustrating and I felt a real conflict as 98 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:53,040 well, that I was supposed to be enforcing this order of the 99 00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:56,960 courts and in some way punishing her. 100 00:05:57,840 --> 00:05:59,920 Yeah, all of this had gone on in her life. 101 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,880 So since then I think I've been really driven by this question 102 00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,080 of how we acknowledge women's experiences of abuse and 103 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:17,040 victimisation without denying them agency, and how we respond 104 00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,960 in a meaningful way to to that. You know, there's some really 105 00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:23,280 big issues that you've drawn on there from that example. 106 00:06:23,280 --> 00:06:27,120 Madeleine, do you think much has been achieved since the 107 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:30,120 publication of the Colston report to address some of the 108 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,560 issues that you've you've talked about experiencing when you were 109 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:36,400 a practitioner? I think what's happened since 110 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:41,000 Colston is that there is much more awareness and I think 111 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,160 sometimes when organisations, particularly agencies of the 112 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:49,040 criminal justice system talk about trauma informedness, what 113 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:52,680 they're actually achieving is trauma awareness. 114 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:57,600 The changes that we all really wanted to see with Karsten 115 00:06:58,520 --> 00:07:02,320 haven't really materialised. And I think we're at a point now 116 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:06,480 actually where we're in exactly the same sort of optimistic. 117 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:10,640 This could be the moment period with the establishment of the 118 00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:13,760 Women's Justice Board, particularly that finally we're 119 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:19,520 going to all this research on women's pathways to crime and 120 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:21,480 what they need from rehabilitation. 121 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:24,120 It's all there, It's been there for decades and that now we've 122 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:28,360 finally got this body that can implement it in policy. 123 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:32,120 So there's reason to be hopeful at the moment. 124 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:34,800 Trauma informed is often used and it's a bit of a buzzword at 125 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:38,160 the moment, but we just wondered whether you could define it and 126 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:41,920 maybe explain its relevance to probation practise because it's 127 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:44,320 used a lot but maybe not really clearly understood. 128 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:48,120 Yeah, sure. So being trauma informed means 129 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:52,200 individual practitioners and organisations as a whole 130 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:57,720 function in a way that takes into into account how trauma may 131 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,240 affect many aspects of a person's life. 132 00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:06,400 So from their behaviour and their relationships to how they 133 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:09,920 experience their surroundings and their physical environment. 134 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:14,080 And the idea is that by applying the principles of trauma 135 00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:17,920 informed practise, we can start to understand behaviour 136 00:08:17,920 --> 00:08:21,800 differently, more compassionately, with a better 137 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:25,520 understanding of what is being communicated through the 138 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,480 behaviour and what the person is experiencing. 139 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:35,000 So Stephanie Covington, who's developed programmes for Justice 140 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:36,840 involved people, puts it really neatly. 141 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,679 She says when people behave in ways that are challenging, 142 00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:43,039 instead of asking what's wrong with them, we can ask what 143 00:08:43,039 --> 00:08:45,520 happened to them. And it's this perspective on 144 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:49,200 behaviour that's at the root of trauma informed practise. 145 00:08:49,560 --> 00:08:53,360 I think it's important for probation in in so many ways. 146 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:57,760 We can all accept, I guess, that prisons are traumatising 147 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:01,000 environments, but probation is too right. 148 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,320 So if we think about even something simple like someone 149 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:07,720 turning up the process of going to a supervision appointment, 150 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:12,040 trauma can really like linger in the body and it can be triggered 151 00:09:12,040 --> 00:09:15,520 by environmental stimuli. So what we see and hear and 152 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,920 smell. So probation offices can be 153 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:23,480 really triggering environments. You have no control how you move 154 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,000 around the space. They can be difficult to access 155 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,440 and navigate. They're often lots of blind 156 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,680 spots, so you can't see where people are going and where 157 00:09:31,680 --> 00:09:34,640 they're coming from. There are lots of locked doors 158 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:38,120 and surveillance measures. There's lots of unexpected noise 159 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:40,360 and people behaving in unpredictable ways. 160 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:43,880 You've got no control over who's in the space. 161 00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:47,560 And all of this is before you sit down with your probation 162 00:09:47,560 --> 00:09:50,840 officer and talk about the most difficult aspects of your life, 163 00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:52,840 all the worst things that have happened to you and all the 164 00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:56,440 worst things that you've done. And you're going into this 165 00:09:56,640 --> 00:10:00,600 carrying all that baggage of the harm that you've endured from 166 00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:04,880 past trauma. And trauma reform practise is a 167 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:07,080 whole organisation approach as well. 168 00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:10,640 And I think this is really important in probation and 169 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:13,880 sometimes forgotten. It's not just about the needs of 170 00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:17,280 the people on probation, but the practitioners in probation as 171 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:20,080 well. So, you know, many of us have 172 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:23,080 experiences of trauma. They're not the reserve of 173 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:27,440 people in the justice system. We know just for example, that 174 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:30,640 one involved women over 16 have experienced sexual assault. 175 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:36,080 So, and there's been some recent research by Becky Shepherd on 176 00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:40,880 vicarious trauma and the team at Sheffield Hallam have done some 177 00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:46,160 work on emotional labour that talks about and really 178 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:48,960 highlights how different elements of the probation work 179 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:54,360 itself can be traumatising. So trauma informed approaches 180 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:58,800 are about making services as accessible and as safe as 181 00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:02,600 possible for everyone who's in them, both the service users and 182 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:05,040 the practitioners. Thank you and the original. 183 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:08,880 Research about trauma informed approaches did focus on women. 184 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:11,880 Could you explain why the focus was originally on women? 185 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:19,400 Yeah, so it's particularly important for women because so 186 00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:22,920 much of women's offending and offending related needs are 187 00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:26,000 rooted in their experiences of victimisation. 188 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:28,920 And this is true for criminalised people of all 189 00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:32,160 genders. Many justice involved men have 190 00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:37,120 also experienced trauma and victimisation, but the nature of 191 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:40,960 their experiences are, I believe, gendered. 192 00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:46,600 So in adulthood women are more likely to experience complex 193 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:49,960 trauma. You know, complex trauma is 194 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:53,360 repeated experiences of victimisation that take place 195 00:11:53,360 --> 00:11:58,240 over a prolonged period of time in a relational context and from 196 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:03,560 which the victim can't psychologically, emotionally or 197 00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:07,480 physically escape from. So two of the most common causes 198 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,200 of complex trauma are childhood abuse and neglect and domestic 199 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:13,080 abuse. And this is where the gender 200 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,560 difference shows up, because whilst there's a similar 201 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:18,520 prevalence of childhood abuse among people of all genders in 202 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:23,120 the justice system, criminalised women also have very high rates 203 00:12:23,120 --> 00:12:25,840 of domestic abuse and sexual exploitation in adulthood. 204 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:31,200 They're much more likely to also experience other forms of 205 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:35,280 relational trauma such as the loss of children and 206 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:39,160 experiencing complex trauma. So these prolonged relational 207 00:12:39,160 --> 00:12:45,040 abuse has specific symptoms beyond like the PTSD symptoms. 208 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:49,280 So in addition to flashbacks and low self esteem and hyper 209 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:53,680 vigilance, emotional detachment that come from PTSD, people who 210 00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:57,880 experience complex trauma also often have difficulty regulating 211 00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:01,880 emotions, have intense feelings of guilt and shame, can 212 00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:06,560 experience dissociation, which is this disconnection from your 213 00:13:06,560 --> 00:13:10,040 sense of self, your body, your emotions and the world around 214 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,080 you. And they have real problems with 215 00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:15,040 trust. So if you're experiencing these 216 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:17,520 sorts of symptoms, you can see what a huge challenge it would 217 00:13:17,520 --> 00:13:21,440 be to engage with probation and again, why trauma informed 218 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:24,400 practise is so important, particularly with women. 219 00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:27,320 Thank you for explaining that. It would be interesting for you 220 00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:29,480 to identify some of the key areas of practise where 221 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:31,600 probation staff should be applying trauma informed 222 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:33,520 approaches. I'm aware that you wrote an 223 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:36,680 inspectorate report focusing in on that and you were really able 224 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:39,880 to identify some real positive areas of practise. 225 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:43,640 So I don't think there's an area of probation practise where we 226 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:47,120 should shouldn't be applying trauma informed approaches like 227 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:49,840 everything probation does, assessment, supervision, 228 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:52,680 interventions, victim liaison, whatever it is. 229 00:13:53,240 --> 00:13:57,720 All that work has to be trauma informed and all probation work 230 00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:01,880 involves engaging people who've experienced trauma inactivity 231 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:05,080 that could be traumatising and re traumatising. 232 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:09,840 So I think good probation work has to be trauma informed. 233 00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:15,840 What I saw with the inspectorate report was a real desire to work 234 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:18,880 in a trauma informed way from practitioners across the 235 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:22,920 organisation, actually from senior management through all 236 00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:28,760 practitioner levels. And there were some really great 237 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:33,800 little pockets of practise going on, sometimes with specific 238 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:35,880 groups. So the women's cohort for 239 00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:40,320 example, there's some really good work going on there, but 240 00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:42,400 also just individual officers sometimes. 241 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:47,000 Like I remember from that research that there was a 242 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:50,080 probation service officer who developed a way of doing an 243 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,560 Oasis assessment in a trauma informed way. 244 00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:55,200 So I think just individual practitioners applying the 245 00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:58,720 principles in individual ways to their work that really 246 00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:03,480 creatively, but the structures unfortunately around the 247 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:08,840 organisation just aren't in a place where they can support 248 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:12,120 truly trauma informed practise at the moment. 249 00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:16,000 You know, it's very difficult to work in a trauma informed way if 250 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:22,560 you have a very, very high caseload, if you don't have 251 00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:27,320 meaningful supervision, if you don't feel you have sufficient 252 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:31,480 training for the work that you're expected to carry out it 253 00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:36,200 when the the organisations in a permanent state of restructure 254 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:41,520 or crisis or change, It's in that context trauma informed 255 00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:44,800 practise becomes very difficult. So it's really challenging in a 256 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,680 lot of circumstances currently. There was another really nice 257 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:51,840 example where somebody had rewritten the language that was 258 00:15:51,840 --> 00:15:55,600 used in somebody's report when they're in care as a three-year 259 00:15:55,600 --> 00:16:00,520 old, and the language about that individual was really negative 260 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:04,760 about them being manipulative and violent or something. 261 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:06,000 And it was written about a three-year old. 262 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,280 But really recognising the fact that you can rewrite that 263 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:12,320 narrative and you can recognise that they were a child at that 264 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:15,160 point and how that can impact them as an adult seeing that 265 00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:17,880 writing about them. And it's important, I think, for 266 00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:21,120 practitioners to recognise actually, that might feel like a 267 00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:23,600 small thing, but it can be a really big thing for the 268 00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:25,600 individuals that are reading it about themselves. 269 00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:28,040 Yeah. And it's a, a really important 270 00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:30,760 element of trauma informed practise actually, that this 271 00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:36,480 sort of retelling of the story of, of your life, really of your 272 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:41,000 trauma and experiences in a way that makes it more able to be 273 00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:43,880 integrated into your sense of self. 274 00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:47,880 You know, it's very hard to read a story about yourself that says 275 00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:52,800 you're violent and you're an offender and you're, you're 276 00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:55,440 addict or you know, all these negative things. 277 00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:58,600 So it's going back to that question of what happened. 278 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,960 It's let's, let's retell this story from the perspective of 279 00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:04,560 what happened and get a different story. 280 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:06,520 Exactly. And that language, it's often 281 00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,000 used about people being manipulative and actually 282 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:13,079 they're they're speaking to different individuals and that 283 00:17:13,079 --> 00:17:16,760 might not be a conscious decision of them, but that's 284 00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:18,480 often language that's used, isn't it? 285 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:19,880 So and. When you've got. 286 00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:25,240 When you lack trust in people, when you find relationships very 287 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:30,080 challenging, When you're hyper vigilant because every 288 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,240 interaction you've had with a professional has been ended up 289 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:35,560 with negative consequences for you. 290 00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:40,240 All of that is what's behind the manipulation and inverted commas 291 00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:43,200 that practitioners might see or feel. 292 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:46,000 So understanding those behaviours is very important. 293 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,080 So thank you for that. And that's what we're 294 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,960 encouraging people to try to unpick as their trainees and 295 00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:55,160 then as probation officers to really understand what it means 296 00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:57,640 to be trauma informed and to try and recognise that in their 297 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:01,200 approaches. So really focusing in on women 298 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:06,040 and your research, looking at women supervised by probation 299 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:09,240 and recognising that they are a much smaller percentage of the 300 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:11,960 people in the criminal justice system and supervised by 301 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:16,800 probation, could you explain why specific approaches are needed 302 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:20,240 to be effective when working with women on probation? 303 00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:24,600 Yeah. So anecdotally, I don't know if 304 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:26,600 this is still around now actually, but when I was a 305 00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:30,320 practitioner, very few probation officers wanted to work with 306 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:32,440 women. There was this received wisdom 307 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,440 that working with women was much more demanding and challenging 308 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:40,400 than working with men. And I think this is because we 309 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:44,120 are relying on interventions and approaches that were designed 310 00:18:44,120 --> 00:18:48,200 largely by and for men, and they don't account for the way 311 00:18:48,360 --> 00:18:51,480 women's pathways to crime and rehabilitative needs can be 312 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:55,600 gendered. So we've now got a lot of 313 00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:59,040 research on women's pathways to crime, as I've said, and we know 314 00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:04,160 that relational abuse that I talked about earlier is often 315 00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:07,360 directly related to their offending. 316 00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:11,360 So I can tell a story that will illustrate this. 317 00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:17,400 I met a woman in prison when I was doing my PhD research, and 318 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:20,360 her story was that she'd been taken into care when she was 319 00:19:20,360 --> 00:19:22,600 seven years old where she experienced abuse. 320 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:26,880 She started drinking to cope with this around the age of 10. 321 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,760 At 12 she was gang raped in a park. 322 00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:35,040 She got pregnant from this rape and the baby was taken away from 323 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:36,760 her. She's now 13. 324 00:19:36,760 --> 00:19:44,280 She was exploited into sex work. At 17 she met a partner who gave 325 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,480 her Class A drugs for the first time. 326 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:50,720 It was an abusive relationship and he also sexually exploited 327 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,120 her so we could get money for his drug use. 328 00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:56,840 She got pregnant again and had this child removed from her 329 00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:00,320 care. She describes from here going 330 00:20:00,360 --> 00:20:03,760 from 1 abusive relationship to another, spending intermittent 331 00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:07,120 periods in hospital or prison until she was around 20. 332 00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:10,840 At this point she was released from a prison sentence and had 333 00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:15,040 put things in place to help her terminate her drug use and to 334 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:17,840 get her out of sex work. She'd got a job in a cinema. 335 00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,480 She got pregnant again but was again in an abusive 336 00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,360 relationship. Her partner threw her down the 337 00:20:24,360 --> 00:20:27,800 stairs and she lost the baby as a result and this triggered A 338 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:32,240 relapse into drug use and she was in prison when we met for 339 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:36,520 assaulting a man when she was sex working who'd refused to pay 340 00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:40,440 her. So you can see in this story 341 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:45,600 these repeated prolonged experiences of trauma and that 342 00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:50,040 there's a, a clear thread through those experiences. 343 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,880 And her offending, particularly in the last offence, which was 344 00:20:55,200 --> 00:21:00,040 she assaulted someone who had not paid her for sex work. 345 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,760 And she was sex working because of her drug use and she was 346 00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:07,160 using drugs because of all this stuff that had happened in her 347 00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:10,520 past. So I think these experiences 348 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,680 among women in the criminal justice system, they're very 349 00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:18,160 common and it means their criminogenic needs are 350 00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,320 different, you know, developing cognitive skills, going to 351 00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:25,720 education, training and employment, even some forms of 352 00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,720 drug treatment or alcohol treatment. 353 00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:33,000 They're not going to get to the root of what's causing the 354 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,680 behaviours that are causing the the involvement in. 355 00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:37,880 Crime and there's some really important points that you've 356 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:40,520 drawn out there. And you you gave us an example 357 00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:45,440 from your research that was focusing in on desistance and 358 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:48,520 why desistance literature needs to be gendered. 359 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:52,240 And you identified through your research the the fact that we 360 00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,760 need specific understanding of women's desistance because it 361 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:58,160 wasn't wasn't really there prior to your research. 362 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:02,480 Could you explain about why women's desistance is different 363 00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:05,440 to men's or more general desistance? 364 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,480 That was around before that time, yeah. 365 00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:14,080 So when I started looking at this, I was just looking at that 366 00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:15,680 question actually, how is it gendered? 367 00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:17,520 How is this desistance journey gendered? 368 00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:23,960 So I spoke to women in prison and followed up with a few of 369 00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:28,480 them over a two year period after they were released and 370 00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:33,360 that is where the significance of trauma and victimisation 371 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:36,520 really came out and became the focus. 372 00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:40,680 It's like we can't talk about women moving away from crime if 373 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:45,240 we don't talk about the ways in which they're victimised and the 374 00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:49,240 ways in which that victimisation impacts on their offending. 375 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,440 But interestingly, the DIS systems research hadn't really 376 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,440 mentioned anything about trauma apart from it had to talked 377 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:03,240 about people having experiences of victimisation and and 378 00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,040 adversity. But it it was as if these were 379 00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:11,360 things that they had to transcend in some way or that 380 00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:16,120 they were experiences that they were able to integrate into 381 00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:19,600 their lives by saying, well, this was a really bad experience 382 00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,240 for me, but it's made me the person who I am. 383 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:24,280 And so I needed to go through it. 384 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,520 But if you think about the stories like the one I've I've 385 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,680 just related, the idea that you can simply integrate that story 386 00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:37,360 into some tale of overcoming adversity was a bit jarring to 387 00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:39,880 me. So yeah, it's. 388 00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,520 What's different for the assistance for women? 389 00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:47,720 I think there's a positivity to ideas around desistance which is 390 00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:52,920 great and needed and stands in contrast to some of the sort of 391 00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,480 earlier approaches to to rehabilitation. 392 00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:02,440 But I think women's journeys are potentially more complex. 393 00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,880 And I think you see that particularly in the importance 394 00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:10,640 of how building relationships is important to desistance. 395 00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:17,080 So the typical male desistor can come out of prison, do some 396 00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:20,960 work, reintegrate with his partner who's been looking after 397 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:25,040 his children for him, and take on that role of a father and 398 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,480 create this new identity around being a father. 399 00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:34,360 For women coming out of prison, the mother identity is often 400 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,480 unavailable to them. It's often tarnished by shame 401 00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:43,800 and loss and is yet another traumatic experience that they 402 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:48,120 have to overcome. And as I've said that, you know, 403 00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:53,640 women in the criminal justice system are so often in abusive 404 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:58,520 relationships with men as well. So just some of these ideas 405 00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,680 around desistance, when you look at them from the perspective of 406 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:07,320 a criminalised woman, they didn't quite fit. 407 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:12,560 No really talked about marriage being a a positive and when you 408 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,360 look at women's experience, that's not always the case. 409 00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,440 No, exactly. Thank you very much. 410 00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,720 So you've referred to it briefly already, but you have been 411 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,040 involved in the One Small Thing project around building a trauma 412 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,760 informed residential women's centre in Southampton called 413 00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,160 Hope St. Can you tell us more about this 414 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:32,720 project? Yeah. 415 00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:38,080 So Hope St, as you said, it's a residential alternative to 416 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:39,800 custody. Something that's really 417 00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:44,640 significant about it is that women can have their children 418 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,040 whilst they're there, they can stay there. 419 00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:55,120 And this was specifically to address a real gendered pain of 420 00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:58,720 imprisonment for women, which is that it can often result in the 421 00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:02,480 loss of their children and family separation. 422 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,520 And that's bad for the women, obviously, but it's also bad for 423 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,280 the children. It means they are often taken 424 00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:12,920 into local authority care or they're looked after by extended 425 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,000 family, which can mean them moving away from their home, 426 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,360 their school, their friends. It's disruptive and difficult. 427 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,880 So the idea behind Hope Street is that it's trauma informed in 428 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,760 its entirety. So a really pioneering element 429 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:34,120 of it is that even the design of the building itself is trauma 430 00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:37,000 informed. And that's what I've been 431 00:26:37,120 --> 00:26:42,440 working on most recently, like looking at the potential of 432 00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:46,040 architecture to support trauma informed practise. 433 00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:51,120 And that's meant going back to a question of what is a trauma 434 00:26:51,120 --> 00:26:53,680 informed space? How do you create it? 435 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:58,600 And what they did at Hope St, which was really revolutionary 436 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:04,480 in architecture anyway, but definitely justice architecture, 437 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:09,040 was that they Co produced the design of the building with 438 00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,560 women who'd been impacted by the criminal justice system or by 439 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,960 homelessness. So the architects got together 440 00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:21,320 with the women and they just workshop what does trust look 441 00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,040 like in a building? What does safety look like in a 442 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,200 building? What does empowerment look like 443 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:28,720 in a building? And they work together to 444 00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:33,160 materialise these ideas in the design of Hope Street. 445 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:38,680 But also and obviously all the interactions that go on within 446 00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,320 Hope St as a space, our trauma informed as well. 447 00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:50,160 So it's a really interesting sort of radical intervention in 448 00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:54,160 how we might work differently with women in the justice 449 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,400 system. It's like how we can really work 450 00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,000 in a trauma informed way with women. 451 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,480 So those little pockets of practise I talked about earlier, 452 00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,680 they're great, but they're always going to be limited if 453 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,760 they're in a system that isn't trauma informed. 454 00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:15,520 So it's like, how do we to take this work out of that system, 455 00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,400 put it in its own own place, own separate place and then see what 456 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,120 we can do, see what we can do there. 457 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,680 So it's hopefully it's been open for two years now. 458 00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:30,200 It's been fully evaluated by a team from the University of 459 00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,560 Southampton. It's undergoing A5 full five 460 00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,760 year evaluation. So we've yet to know what the 461 00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:41,000 outcomes are going to be for the women that are passing through 462 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,560 it. But from the interviews I've 463 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:48,840 undertaken with the women, they're evangelical about it. 464 00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:53,440 It's this really small things as well, where they can start to 465 00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:58,280 see themselves differently and start to heal from what's gone 466 00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:01,880 on in their past. So there was one example of a 467 00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,680 woman who had, because we were talking about the space and 468 00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,600 principle of empowerment. And she would show me this 469 00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,560 picture of these bins that had been put out by the residential 470 00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,400 areas of the building. And she was like, those bins 471 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,360 were my idea. There's a different bin for 472 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,120 every flat. And I was like, Oh yeah, what 473 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,160 was it that made you want to do that? 474 00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,600 And she was like, well, I've always lived in these places 475 00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:28,280 where there's been really messy shared communal bin areas and we 476 00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:33,280 didn't have individual bins. So I suggested to the team that 477 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,760 we have have these bins. And then they did it. 478 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:39,840 And then the next thing she said was, So then I started thinking, 479 00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,360 well, what else can I do here? And there was a real. 480 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,120 It was a small thing, but just because of the way that she was 481 00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:51,640 responded to, it gave her a real sense of achievement and control 482 00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,800 and empowerment over the space Which? 483 00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,520 Could then lead through to agency over her own life and 484 00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,120 recognising that look if she's listened to in those 485 00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,960 environments, then she can also has it have influence in other 486 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:05,160 areas and and will help her build and grow, wouldn't it? 487 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,200 Yeah, exactly. Really important and thank you 488 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:13,120 for telling us about Hope St And there's a real hope that it'll 489 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,320 be a blueprint and and recognise that other areas will be 490 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:19,280 following a similar approach, but. 491 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,760 You've touched on it already a bit Madeline, but for P quip 492 00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,320 students that are listening and maybe aren't really familiar 493 00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,400 with trauma informed principles, could you explain what the 494 00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,200 trauma informed principles are and how they can incorporate 495 00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,000 them in their practise? So the principles of trauma 496 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,120 informed practises that are used in criminal justice agencies 497 00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:44,840 usually come from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 498 00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:49,280 Administration in the US and there are 6 fundamental 499 00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,640 principles. First is safety. 500 00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:57,080 This is that throughout the organisation, staff and the 501 00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,040 people accessing services feel physically, emotionally and 502 00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:07,000 psychologically safe. The second is trustworthiness 503 00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,480 and transparency. So, according to this principle, 504 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,040 organisation operates in a very transparent way. 505 00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:19,120 Decisions are made transparently with the goal of building and 506 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:23,040 maintaining trust with service users and staff. 507 00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:27,880 The third one is peer support. So peer support is something 508 00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:33,840 that's been very important to help people overcome trauma and 509 00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:38,160 heal from trauma. So it's about encouraging and 510 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:42,760 maximising opportunities for mutual self help among people 511 00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,560 who are in the organisation. The 4th principle is 512 00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:50,440 collaboration and mutuality. So this is about levelling the 513 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,840 power differences in between staff and service users and or 514 00:31:54,840 --> 00:32:00,840 between different staff members across the organisation so that 515 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,240 everybody in the organisation feels they are valued and have a 516 00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,760 role to play in developing trauma informed practise within 517 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,120 the space. The 5th principle is 518 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:18,280 empowerment, voice and choice. So according to this principle, 519 00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:22,160 it's really about recognising people's strengths and 520 00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,640 experiences and building on those. 521 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,800 So it's really common when people experience trauma that 522 00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:34,600 they are silenced in some way. So this principle is about 523 00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,840 ensuring that everyone feels empowered and that their voice 524 00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,640 matters and that their ideas matter and that they have some 525 00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:48,720 degree of choice over how they either work in the space or 526 00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,440 access the services that the the organisation providing. 527 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:58,720 And the final principle is cultural, historical and gender 528 00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:03,280 inclusivity. So this is a more recent 529 00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,000 addition to the principles of trauma informed practise that 530 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:11,440 recognises that lots of our understandings of trauma really 531 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,040 come from white, western, medicalised understandings of 532 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,720 trauma. So this principle is about 533 00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:24,080 ensuring organisations actively move past cultural stereotypes 534 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:30,080 and biases and offer gender responsive services and services 535 00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,160 that recognise that trauma is sometimes experienced 536 00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,160 collectively because of structural oppression such as 537 00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:43,200 racism or culturally, and that the organisation takes active 538 00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,280 steps to meet those needs. Thank you for that, Madeleine. 539 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,200 For trainees who are training to be probation officers, they 540 00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:52,760 might be concerned about how they can actively implement some 541 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:54,880 of those principles because there is obviously the power 542 00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,920 dynamic. They are managing risk. 543 00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,880 So sometimes we'll have to make decisions that the person 544 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,160 they're working with on probation will be unhappy about. 545 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,440 So I wondered if you had any examples or any tips about how 546 00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:09,280 they can really work, use those principles in some of those 547 00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,679 difficult decisions or difficult practise issues. 548 00:34:12,679 --> 00:34:15,560 Yeah. So this, it's a real challenge 549 00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:21,080 to deliver trauma informed practise in organisations where 550 00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:27,440 people are forced to be there in what is fundamentally A punitive 551 00:34:27,679 --> 00:34:29,719 system, you know, the criminal justice system. 552 00:34:30,199 --> 00:34:34,080 So with hopes Jury, part of the rationale for I think was like 553 00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,560 overuse of short term prison sentences for women and the 554 00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,840 negative impact of that. But just thinking from a wider 555 00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,199 public perspective that might not understand experiences of 556 00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:47,639 women in the criminal justice system or the issue with short 557 00:34:47,639 --> 00:34:49,880 term or long term prison sentences for women. 558 00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,600 Or if people are concerned about their managing a woman whose 559 00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:56,199 assessed is posing a high risk of harm, why would it still be 560 00:34:56,199 --> 00:34:58,160 important to have a trauma informed approach? 561 00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:00,560 Why is that still a positive thing? 562 00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:06,440 Because I think this comes down to understandings of justice. 563 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:13,120 So often when a crime happens, the knee jerk reaction is that 564 00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,120 we have to punish this person. But actually these women know 565 00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,360 punishment. Like as I've talked about the 566 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,080 experiences of the story I showed, that woman knows what it 567 00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,720 is to be punished. Her whole life has been 568 00:35:27,720 --> 00:35:32,080 punishment. If we want to actually give 569 00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:35,960 victims of crime what they want, which when you dig into it is 570 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:41,200 often that the person won't do it again, that they'll start to 571 00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:45,960 feel safe. That's where responses and like 572 00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:51,200 hope St can be really effective. We we know prison doesn't work 573 00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:55,680 for anyone, definitely not for women and definitely not for 574 00:35:55,680 --> 00:36:00,320 women who serve short sentences. Women fare better on community 575 00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,320 sentences. But as I've said already, 576 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:06,400 community sentences are still designed around the needs of men 577 00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,120 because they are the vast majority of people accessing 578 00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:14,120 them. So having a specific gender 579 00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:20,120 informed, trauma responsive approach to working with women 580 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:26,880 is something that seems to offer the best chance of both helping 581 00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:32,320 the women recover from their experiences of victimisation and 582 00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:37,480 in doing so, ensuring that they don't commit offences that are 583 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,640 going to harm other people. Thank you, a lot of the P quip 584 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,440 training focuses on reflective practise so I just wondered your 585 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,120 thoughts on how reflective practise can help P quip 586 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,760 trainees with their trauma informed work. 587 00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:56,160 Yeah, trauma informed practise is absolutely dependent on 588 00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:59,040 reflective practise. You can't be a trauma informed 589 00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,760 practitioner if you're not a reflexive practitioner. 590 00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,520 Much of trauma informed practise relies on how you as a 591 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:09,240 practitioner relates to the person you are working with. 592 00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:12,120 It's all in that relationship really. 593 00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,960 So this means having a really good understanding of your own 594 00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,880 experiences, like what you were taking into that interview room 595 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:24,480 with you and how these might manifest in your interactions 596 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,280 with others. I think it also means being able 597 00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,720 to reflect in the moment. So if a person's responding in a 598 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:34,360 way that is challenging, maybe because they're acting 599 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,800 aggressively or conversely they're just not communicating 600 00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:42,200 at all, being able to go back to that question of what happened 601 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:46,440 to them, you know, what are they communicating here to inform how 602 00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:49,080 you respond is really, really important. 603 00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:55,000 And I think reflective practise helps us develop trauma informed 604 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,640 practise. So once you've got a good 605 00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:02,360 understanding of trauma and it's symptoms, you can use reflective 606 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:05,440 practise to think about how to bring this into your work. 607 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,160 So I've already mentioned the example of the person who 608 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:13,320 thought about how to make an Oasis interview more trauma 609 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:17,640 informed. Another example from the HMIP 610 00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,720 inspection was someone who'd reworded the warning letter. 611 00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:25,760 So we stopped calling it a warning letter and instead I 612 00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,960 think they'd called it an engagement letter or something 613 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:33,040 like that and reworded it so it wasn't such a threatening thing 614 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,040 to receive. And that might actually help 615 00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,520 someone want to re engage if their attendance had been 616 00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,640 dropping off. So I think reflective practise 617 00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:47,240 is really important to be able to think about how you can use 618 00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:50,520 these principles that are generalised and apply them to 619 00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,440 little pieces of your work where possible. 620 00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,320 I'm really starting to identify the power of language and how 621 00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:00,080 language can harm people. And you might not realise that 622 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,200 at all, but just changing what feels like a minor thing like 623 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,800 that can have a really big impact on people that you're 624 00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,200 working with. Yeah, absolutely important. 625 00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:12,440 OK, so Madeline, we're now going to to give you a magic wand. 626 00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,200 So if you had the power, if you had a magic wand that you could 627 00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,600 wave, and you could implement one major change to improve 628 00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,200 probation practise, what would it be? 629 00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,800 So this is such a hard question. The one I'm going to go for is 630 00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,120 clinical supervision for practitioners. 631 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:35,320 So I think I was lucky to have trained to be a probation 632 00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:40,120 officer at a time where we did lots of supervision in lots of 633 00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,760 different ways. So even case, the way cases were 634 00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:47,480 allocated, we'd sit down once a week and I was senior probation 635 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:49,280 officer would have this pile of cases. 636 00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:53,000 We'd talk through them and people would say I'll take that 637 00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,800 one, I'll take that one from that to then I worked on the sex 638 00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,040 offender treatment programme for a while, having very intensive 639 00:40:02,240 --> 00:40:04,480 clinical supervision around that. 640 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,640 And I think so much of trauma informed practise is about 641 00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,400 looking after the practitioner as well. 642 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,920 And I think if we don't look after practitioners, probation 643 00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:20,880 can never be trauma informed. And when our organisations are 644 00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,120 stretched financially and have to make cuts, often the first 645 00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,800 things that go are the supports around the practitioners. 646 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,320 But this is hard work. It's challenging because there's 647 00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:35,040 a lot of work, but the nature of the work is challenging as well. 648 00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,200 You're dealing with difficult behaviours, people with very 649 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,400 significant problems. And of course everyone's got 650 00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,760 their own stuff that's going on in their own lives as well. 651 00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:48,760 And I think clinical supervision is just so important in terms 652 00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,760 of, yeah, practitioner well-being that then can be 653 00:40:52,240 --> 00:40:55,080 transferred into the practise with the people they're working 654 00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:56,600 with. Thank you. 655 00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,440 So a question we ask all of our guests is if you could recommend 656 00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,960 one book or article for our listeners who want to explore 657 00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,440 the topics you've talked about today further, what, what would 658 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,280 you recommend? I would immediately recommend 659 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:13,720 Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. 660 00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:19,040 So Judith Herman is a psychiatrist and she is the 661 00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:23,000 person who kind of conceptualised complex trauma. 662 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:27,040 So she'd be done some work with war veterans and PTSD. 663 00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:32,320 And she started noticing that women who were coming to her and 664 00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:34,880 who were in abusive relationships or had experienced 665 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:39,720 sexual violence were talking about similar symptoms to PTSD 666 00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:44,520 but with some slight variations. And this Trauma and Recovery is 667 00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,600 such a great book. It explains about all different 668 00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:51,440 types of trauma, but the second-half of the book is 669 00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:56,520 really useful because it talks about how we can start to 670 00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,120 support healing from trauma and she's got this very 671 00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:05,720 straightforward 3 stage recovery model, which I think is really 672 00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:09,240 transferable to working in probation actually. 673 00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:14,080 So 100% if you want to understand trauma and trauma 674 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,480 informed practise, that is the book to read. 675 00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,160 Great recommendation. Thank you for that, Madeline. 676 00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,080 We'll also be putting details of your your research and your 677 00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,840 publications in the show notes for this podcast episode as 678 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:26,640 well. So you didn't, you didn't have 679 00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:28,840 to recommend those, but we'll be putting them in there. 680 00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,480 So thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today, 681 00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:33,520 Madeline. Yeah. 682 00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:35,920 It's been great and really helpful for our P quick learners 683 00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,200 to understand more about trauma informed approaches. 684 00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,120 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, it's 685 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,520 been great to speak to you. Thanks for listening to 686 00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,480 Probation Perspectives insights into community justice. 687 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,000 We hope our conversation with Doctor Madeleine Petrillo 688 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,600 offered new perspectives on trauma informed practise and the 689 00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,000 pathways to the assistance for women on probation. 690 00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:58,720 From the realities of women's lived experiences to the 691 00:42:58,720 --> 00:43:02,040 innovative design of Hope St, we trust that you came away with 692 00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,400 ideas that inspire reflection and practise. 693 00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,520 If you found this episode valuable, please subscribe, 694 00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,160 leave a review and share it with colleagues or learners you think 695 00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:13,040 would benefit, And do let us know your thoughts or who you'd 696 00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,960 like to hear from next. A big thank you to Madeline for 697 00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,680 sharing her insights and to the team behind Probation 698 00:43:18,720 --> 00:43:21,000 Perspectives for making this podcast possible. 699 00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,240 We'll be back soon with more conversations that shine a light 700 00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:26,760 on the practise, purpose and people behind probation and 701 00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:29,720 community justice. Until next time, take care.