Impacting on local and national planning: Reviewing Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s Reducing Reoffending Plans
By providing constructive and insightful feedback on early drafts of our Regional Reducing Reoffending Plans, the RDA Probation Lived Experience Team helped us consider the views of those who use our services, to produce Plans with a strong commitment to listening to, and including people who use our services in all our work.
Sonia Flynn, Chief Probation Officer for England and Wales
“To see the voices of people with lived experience being valued by a (probation) service I once felt overlooked by and the needs and experiences of people under probation supervision and focused primarily on risk, fills me with hope that systematic change is not just happening; it is happening as we speak. Long may it continue.”
David, Probation Lived Experience Team Member
In June 2020 all probation services unified under the Probation Service, a service consisting of twelve sub-regions across England and Wales. With reunification came the opportunity for each of these regions to set out their three-year plans for working with partners to reduce reoffending in their areas. Working alongside KMPG we supported the development of each of these plans, providing regional and national leaders with feedback from policy, research, and lived experience perspectives (via our Probation Lived Experience Team). As recognised by Sonia Flynn (Chief Probation Officer for England and Wales, see above), our feedback supported Regional Probation Directors to develop and refine their ambitions and practical strategies for meeting these.
As regional and national probation leaders were very receptive to and welcoming of our feedback, several members of our Probation Lived Experience Team, including David (see above), described how being involved had a significant positive impact on them personally, particularly as they often did not feel listened to by the Probation Service when they were under supervision.
