Welcome from Amy Rees, Director General Probation, Wales and Youth
A very warm welcome! I am delighted that we are now nearing the day when we bring together colleagues from across the National Probation Service, CRCs, Parent Organisations and Supply Chain Organisations into our new unified probation service. Each and every one of you will be critical to our new organisation and together we are going to build a brilliant new probation service, which takes the best from CRC and NPS practices to deliver better outcomes for the public and the people under our supervision.
Read Amy’s full welcome message here
For those of you who don’t know me, my role is the Director General for Probation and Wales – I am responsible for probation work across England and Wales and I also have responsibility for the prisons in Wales. I am immensely proud to be Director General and lead the probation service, as you all do such incredible and important work to keep our communities safe and support people to change their lives. I want the great work you do to be widely recognised and understood and it is a priority for me to ensure probation gets the professional recognition it deserves. Our Workforce Programme are taking this ambition forward, whilst also ensuring we are investing in you with the training and the tools to do your jobs, with the right wellbeing support and professional development opportunities.
Looking ahead to June and beyond, I know for some of you the changes planned may feel unsettling and it is natural to feel like that, but I want to reassure you that we are doing all we can to keep any disruption to a minimum and that I am wholly committed to getting the changes right for you as our staff group and also for those under our supervision. I am confident that by making these changes now, we are going to create a better, more sustainable probation service – one which enables you all to be your best; strengthens our influence with partners locally and nationally and ultimately transforms people’s lives.
I am really pleased that we are launching this new Welcome Hub to enable us to keep you updated and informed on what is happening, as this is such an important part of getting our changes right. I hope you find it a helpful resource.
I look forward to working with you all.
Best Wishes
Amy
Welcome from Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer
Firstly, to wish you the warmest welcome to our new probation service. I am so excited to be working with you to build our new organisation together.
There’s a famous saying – ‘The only constant in life is change’ and I acknowledge how much change we have all been through recently, not least as we have grappled with learning how to work during a global pandemic. I have been so impressed with your resilience during this time and your commitment to providing a great service to those we support. As we all know, probation has been through so much change in the past few years. I am committed to taking the best from our collective efforts during this time and building an organisation that is stronger than ever before, one which enables us all to be our best and recognises the professionalism of the work we do.
Read Sonia’s full welcome message here
I have worked in probation for some 32 years now and I feel incredibly privileged to have been awarded a CBE in the Queens Honours list. As part of this, I was asked to reflect on the most memorable moment of my career. Though it was hard to choose just one thing – in 2011, during my time in London Probation Trust, I’m very proud of the work we did to pioneer the introduction of user councils and London was the first trust to employ service users as Engagement Workers (EW). Engagement Workers were recruited to bring their lived experience into the workplace and support service users, and in my opinion they are the best ambassadors to show that change is real and lasting. Indeed, I recently received a letter from one of the first Engagement Workers recruited in London. Her name is Janice Nix and she has written a book which is soon to be published. The book tells her story and the positive impact of being employed as an Engagement Worker and the opportunities that gave to her. This really reinforces the value of everything we do and it is one of my biggest hopes for the future that we can build on our ability to offer real change to individuals and find opportunities for them to gain employment and overcome the obstacles they face.
As we look to the future, we really do have the most extraordinary opportunity to build our new probation service together – one which maximises our ability to support those we work with to achieve long lasting change in their lives. Our new organisation, with its increased funding and greater ability to commission at scale, will help to ensure our impact and influence is used to best effect and ultimately lead to fewer victims and safer communities.
I am really looking forward to us becoming one organisation and one workforce, so that we can bring the best of our organisations together and continue to deliver a brilliant service to those under our supervision. I’m sure that I will look back at this time of change as another memorable moment in my career and with a great deal of pride at what we have achieved together.
Sonia Flynn
Welcome from Jo Farrar, Chief Executive Officer, HM Prison & Probation Service
Let me start by saying a very warm welcome to all of you who will be joining our HMPPS organisation in June 2021. I’m really excited that you will be joining us so we can continue working together in a critical part of Government, one where we have a big opportunity to help people to turn their lives around.
Read Jo’s full welcome message here
I became the Chief Executive of HMPPS in April 2019 and before that I was Director General for Local Government and Public Services. Through my career as a public servant, I have experienced the real difference we can make if we work together with our partners from across government and outside.
Since joining HMPPS, I have been overwhelmed by the supportive and friendly environment and I hope that is what you each experience too. In addition to my role as Chief Executive, I am also your senior race champion and your gender champion. I am incredibly passionate about this and committed to keep diversity and inclusion high on our priority list as an organisation. We launched the HMPPS Race Action Programme in December last year, which will provide a holistic approach to tackling inequality, with workstreams to support and empower our Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and those in our care. I strongly believe in us uniting to make HMPPS a welcoming, inclusive and diverse place to work.
I’m incredibly proud of the work we do and it is an ambition of mine to build one HMPPS that brings the strengths of probation, prisons and youth custody together. Working together to share best practice and learn from each other will help us to achieve excellent outcomes as HMPPS and as part of the wider Ministry of Justice to protect the public and reduce reoffending.
I’m grateful for all that you do to deliver our probation service and look forward to seeing what we can achieve together going forward. I hope to meet you all soon, perhaps virtually in our current world, and face-to-face one day soon.
Jo Farrar