Published date:
By Karen Sinnamon
Within the Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) the term ‘collaborative working’ is used so ubiquitously that practitioners risk adopting a nonchalant attitude which belies the complexity of this approach. Following a brief introduction to the role of collaboration in the wider political and criminal justice system, this article explores some of the challenges and opportunities associated with interagency collaboration. It focuses on three salient strands which can either hamper or enhance the efforts of probation staff to fulfil statutory responsibilities, and to empower service-users to recognise that ultimately, they are their own agents for change.
The first strand is that of agency mission and the potential for ‘mission distortion’, a risk associated with partnership working. The paper then moves on to explore the impact of changing policies and resource management for collaborative working. The third strand focuses on the therapeutic alliance as an essential component in any collaboration that aims to facilitate and enable behavioural change. The paper concludes with some reflections on the need for a balanced, proportionate and person-centred approach to interagency collaboration within probation practice.