Experiencing Supervision in England—On Licence and on Community Sentences

Appreciating service user views on their own supervision is crucial, both to aid service users in their path towards desistance and to create effective supervision. The SEED training programme for probation staff in England concentrated on one-to-one supervision and how it was being delivered. As part of the evaluation of SEED, we asked those on licence and those on community orders about their own experience of their supervision (both those whose supervisors were trained on the SEED programme and control groups). All those service users commencing supervision in selected areas of three Probation Trusts were asked if they would like to complete an anonymous questionnaire about the general running of their licence/order, what was talked about in their supervision sessions, and their views on their supervisor and supervision—and 482 service users took the opportunity to do so. Key positive elements included having a good relationship with one’s supervisor, the supervisor behaving as a role model and the supervisor motivating the service user towards desistance. Being given skills to solve problems (and encouraging service users to contact other agencies) were also important—though no supervision can tackle all the practical obstacles facing those trying to desist. We supplemented these questionnaires with in-depth interviews with a small number of service users, near the beginning of their order and then again six months or so later. We saw that, though similar positive elements emerged, both setting tasks to be done between supervision sessions and setting goals seemed to diminish over the course of the supervision. We conclude that there is a need for both supervisors and service users to think afresh near the end of supervision as to how the service user could focus on the next steps on the desistance path.