“Our Lives are timed around phone calls and visits that clash with our footy practice, dance classes, mate’s birthday parties, school lessons… We move house and live with our nans, granddads, aunties and uncles. We go to school and dodge looks and questions, what did they do? How long did they get? Have you seen them? We get our heads down, try to get good marks, stay out of trouble, blend in, be normal…’| All Things Considered
Back in June 2023, as part of the HMPPS annual Think Child campaign, I spoke to a Time-Matters UK support group about children’s and young people’s experiences of probation. Of the group of nine, none had ever met their parent’s probation practitioner, most did not know their parent even had one, and all of them, when asked to describe a probation worker, said they pictured someone ‘scary.’| Prison Reform Trust