John Scott: Hello, everybody and welcome to our international network, Criminal justice live. Podcast.
John Scott: this is the second episode in this series, called Just psychology.
John Scott: When leading international psychologists and experts are invited to examine important justice issues
John Scott: and bring their particular perspectives to bear. In conversation with a live audience.
John Scott: Our professor, Joe Clark from the Uk. Is the joining factor who is attending all of these events. But we're going around Europe and elsewhere in the world to get different perspectives.
John Scott: My name's John Scott.
John Scott: And my job today is to share the podcast and invite
John Scott: of people on our panel and those that join us to ask questions and contribute to the discussion.
John Scott: Thank you very much for joining, and you can find details of future episodes on our website.
John Scott: Now, the subject is resilience
John Scott: and retention of staff
John Scott: prison service.
John Scott: and we hope the conversation will be both lively
John Scott: and interesting.
John Scott: Now, how's this going to work? Well, we're hoping to have a
John Scott: conversation.
John Scott: So this is.
John Scott: topic is going to bounce between the 4 of us round the table today, and if you have questions and want to send them in. It would be great to have them either on the chat line
John Scott: any other route you'd like to send them by email, or whatever would be great to hear from you.
John Scott: but we're going to have a perspective on
John Scott: Gusta type of thing.
John Scott: and then we're going to move to Croatia, where we have either scarlet
John Scott: who's going to give different perspective from Croatia, and then we're going to switch
John Scott: to Joe Clark, who will bring a perspective
John Scott: from a Uk view.
John Scott: And as we talk.
John Scott: the hope is that different questions, different views are going to emerge. And
John Scott: we don't want to be
John Scott: too straightforward, and the hope is that we'll have different ideas that would be helpful to different parts of the world.
John Scott: So that's our aim, and I'll try my best to keep us on track and keep us going.
John Scott: 1st of all, I'm going to ask Gustav Eva and Joe to introduce themselves. It's a rather good way to check that the connections are working. So let's start with Gustav Calving, who's from Europe? Please, Gustav, say something about yourself.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Good afternoon, John. Thank you for inviting me. So I'm calling in from the Hague and that's in the Netherlands. But actually, I'm not Dutch myself. I'm I'm Swedish origin, but moved to the Hague 3 years ago to take care of Europe's post pandemic and making this organization grow and thrive. With a great membership that we have. So
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and I have a
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: small team working with me here in the Hague, where we are situated with the office of Europress, and it's 5 team members working on communications, events, finances, etc.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And to introduce myself a bit more in detail. As I said, I'm Swedish and I I studied sociology. So I'm a sociologist for origin in my academic studies. And
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: through my studies. I was very interested in divide behaviour and power relations. Actually. So it wasn't a coincidence that I started working in remand prisons during my study time in in Stockholm.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and through that interest there was growing I applied for a position as probation officer in Stockholm. Later on, in the early 2 thousands, which was a fascinating job, and I really enjoyed that period of my life
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: moving into the Training Academy in Stockholm where I was training other professionals, especially in probation, but also in prison.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: in risk, assessment, and substance, disorders, etc.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: After a couple of years there I was recruited to the new newly reinstated research and development units and the head office in the Swedish Prison Probation Service, and I worked there to build up a
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: a new unit with the Scientific Council and the whole procedure to commission and conduct research within the service.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Moving on in my career, I I worked a couple of years in the Director General's office, and that's where I was
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: introduced
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: more into international cooperation and international work. So
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: it actually started with a project in 2,014, which is now 10 years ago.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: where which was called presence of the future. So my 1st international trip was actually here to The Hague 10 years ago. So that was a fascinating project EU project.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and there I got to more acquainted with Europress as an organization which was very young. Back then. It was only a couple of years old, and I started working for Europris
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: some years later, on part time as a policy officer. So I got to know the organization even better, and then I was asked to take the position as executive director in 2,021. So that is my background.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: In terms of interest. I I already mentioned sociology and social issues. But I'm also very interested in human rights aspects of the work we do and of course, international relations. I'm really fascinated about
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: the power of collaboration both in teams and organizations, but also internationally. And it sort of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: becoming more and more obvious to me that the European
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: continent is really needs to to cooperate, to solve its questions together rather than doing it in silos or on the nation levels, because so much
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: related to crime and drugs, etc. Etc. Is now internationalized. And then also
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: the solutions need to be international to a certain extent.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: so I think I'll stop there with my introduction, and I hope you you're happy with that start.
John Scott: Well, we we've we've found out a lot about you, and all of that will inform the discussion to come. So thank you, Gustav. Let's let's ask Eva the same question, where where are you? And what's your background?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Well, thank you, John. Hello, everybody!
John Scott: It's.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Pleasure to be here
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: when I say here I'm usually in our capital from Croatia Zagreb, but at this moment I'm saying hello from vacation. So I'm on one of the islands of Croatia.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So my name is Eva Parscalov. I'm a psychologist by profession, and I'm currently doing my Ph. D. Where my research focus will be related
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: to the topics of employee wellbeing.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: More specifically, my interest is going more heading, more into judicial police officers.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: security stuff.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So I have been working in prison systems since 2,011, and for the 1st few years I worked with juveniles in correctional institution. And until recently, I actually worked as a head of department for international cooperation
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: at the only training center we have in Croatia.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: both experiences simply led me to work today in the Psychological Support Department for Prison and Probation Service stuff. Where, actually, when you think of the focus of the work is on wellbeing, of of employees
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: through psychological support and preventive programs for employees. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: somehow, I already
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: was thinking a lot of wellbeing during my work with juveniles. And while I was looking at my colleagues and listening their needs
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: as a practitioners. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: somehow this department gives me the opportunity to think more widely on that level.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I'm also a licensed supervisor in a way that I'm 1 of the supervisors giving supportive supervision for probation and prison staff in our ministry.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And also
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I'm part of the Europe peace expert group on wellbeing.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So.
John Scott: But.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: That being said, I think it's kind of obvious that my interest goes a lot on wellbeing topics. And somehow it's
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I see, connection that is always integrated from trainings to research field.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Let's say, contact
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: to through the stuff on the field practitioners.
John Scott: That's great, and you're seeing the people working both in prisons, and I think, information
John Scott: from both the beginning. But being employed, but also the pressures of delivering the job. And you're seeing them as whole people with different tensions or the the demands of the job, but also how you can support within that absolutely brilliant. And
John Scott: I can. I can feel the the energy already, and the the way we can follow this up and and talk about both Croatia and what's happening elsewhere.
John Scott: Welcome, either. It's great to have you
John Scott: a joke.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Think of!
John Scott: Tell us a bit about yourself. I can see your
John Scott: also wanting to get going on the questions. But let's find out about where you're coming from.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: You.
Jo Clarke: I'll try and keep it brief. I'm actually, I'm sitting in York, in England, where I've lived for the last 24 years, having come up to York in 2,000 to do a Phd. To look at the impact on prison staff of their work. So Eva and I will have a huge amount in common.
Jo Clarke: And I'll try not to monopolise this whole podcast by asking Eva about her research. Because that's what I want to do. But I want to go back further than that, because I actually joined the prison service the last century in 1990. I qualified in 1988 in psychology, and didn't know what to do, saw an advert for a job in prison, and thought I'm a bit young for that. It might do my head in.
Jo Clarke: So I didn't apply, and actually worked in probation for a couple of years, supervising offenders in the community.
Jo Clarke: And then I felt a bit more grown up and a bit more mature. So I applied to join the prison service, joined, and was told I was going to get posted to the Isle of Wight to work in a prison that was going to become a centre of excellence in the treatment of sex offenders, and I remember vividly thinking.
Jo Clarke: don't think I want to work with sex offenders, because I think that might do my head in. So for the last 35 years I have had such clearly been really tuned into the idea that our job might impact us.
Jo Clarke: Doing my Phd. In 2,010 years into my career was partly prompted by 2 colleagues taking the prison service to court for psychiatric injury as a result of their work. And I think it's very natural for us to think that it's the job that causes the impact. And that's where I started. But then, thinking, actually, we were all doing the same work. So why are some people impacted and not others.
Jo Clarke: And what's the role of the individual? What's the role of the nature of the work? What's the role of the organisation?
Jo Clarke: What's the role of us as individuals. What do we we bring as a, as a person with a life outside of work? You know we take ourselves with us wherever we go. So
Jo Clarke: so my Phd. Was enlightening. I had the best time doing it, went back into the service as a wellbeing advisor in high security prisons, and then had an opportunity to go back into academia for a number of years, and was apart from managing or directing a masters in forensic psychology
Jo Clarke: at that point also undertook some research that was funded by the European Union, initiated by the State Probation Service of Latvia, and it was called the Spore Project, and it was looking at sustaining probation officer resilience across Europe
Jo Clarke: and involved Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands and the Uk. Obviously fascinating piece of research. I know that the final report is still available for people to read, and it really reinforces the idea that if we're going to thrive at work, we really need to be looking after the whole person right from the very beginning of their career, right up to the point at which they leave.
Jo Clarke: So it is a very holistic approach, and, as you can probably tell, I'm completely passionate about it. I now run a small, not for profit company called Petros, and we specialise in
Jo Clarke: enabling people to thrive at work, not just in criminal justice, but across any
Jo Clarke: sector and any industry. We
Jo Clarke: pride ourselves on the fact that where there's people. There's Petros. So because we're about the people, we're about understanding the individuals.
Jo Clarke: So that's what I do for a living. Aside from that, I'm a very keen equestrian. So I've got a horse that I regularly get into trouble with fell off last year and broke my back. That's a very interesting impact on how you manage your working life. I also am a foster mum.
Jo Clarke: and that came actually from my experience in prison so long before I was a mum
Jo Clarke: coming across men who in the nineties were in prison, who were usually in the care system in the seventies and eighties in the Uk. Having hideous experiences and thinking. I have no idea what kind of parent I'm going to be, but I know I won't be abusive or neglectful.
Jo Clarke: And that
Jo Clarke: sparked a dream in me to foster. And I've been doing that for the last 20 years. So it is very relevant. It's very relevant to resilience and wellbeing as well. So yeah, I'll stop there. I could talk forever, as you know, John, so you might have to cut me off.
John Scott: Okay. So we've got a whole load of different interests coming to bear. And what we're going to do is we're going to start with Gustav.
John Scott: and the thing about Europe is is, it brings an organizational perspective to
John Scott: an overview, as it were, because perhaps you'd like to start the conversation
John Scott: and take it away.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Thanks, John, just a short comment on on Joe's description. I think it was very fascinating, and I I would say that not being abusive or neglective is also a good baseline for prison services, I would say, in terms of setting standards.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: But yeah. So European prisons. Today, I mean, Europe is a member organization, and we have 39 members with Poland, Moldova, and Greece recently joining which we are very happy for. So we are regularly taking the temperature. What's going on in Europe?
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And the last couple of years we've asked our members what are the pressing needs in your institutions and what is going on. And in what way can we help you improve? So in those conversations, 5 areas of priority has emerged.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and the 1st one is organized crime
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: which you hear more and more about, and maybe especially from from my home country, Sweden, which is used to be, let's say.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: representing exactly golden standard of social rehabilitation and corrections, I would say, is now severely suffering from from organized crime, and with the results also inside prisons.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: which brings me to the other topic which is overcrowding. So we see overcrowding now in countries where this has not been present before, some countries have more of a static situation almost in terms of overcrowding like.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: England and Wales, France and Belgium, for example, has for a long time suffered from overcrowding. But now we also see other countries with with quickly rising populations.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So so this is, of course, related to political changes in in Europe all over. And it's very important to follow this development.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: 3rd topic or priority is violence between prisoners, but also violence against staff.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So this is really an issue. And and it's also new generations coming into prison which has evidently less respect for authority. So there is a lot more hostility among new younger generations, especially in certain gangs, etc. Where it's almost.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: let's say, a tribute, or to the gang to hurt the prison officer. So that is really serious development that we see. 4, th I would mention mental health disorders in prisons.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and that includes, of course, substance abuse, disorders, which is the most common one, I would say.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So these 4, of course, are also interlinked. As you know, so organised crime is very much connected with drug trafficking, and which is also happening inside prisons. Unfortunately, violence is often also related to conflicts about drugs, etc. And overcrowding is, of course, a result of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: not only always the political changes, but also actual changes in crime structure. So we have to respect that fact that
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: again, with the example of Sweden, Sweden is facing an unprecedented wave of bombings and shootings which has to be managed somehow.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And last, but not least, the 5th area. You can also put it at the first, st but I thought it was more of a twist to the whole list staff is the 5th area of priority.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Most countries put it first, st actually, because it is a very big challenge already, both when it comes to recruitment.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: the well-being, as Eva mentioned, and also retention of stuff. So I think this
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: podcast is very timely in that sense, because it address one of the key priorities for European prison services.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And sort of all in all this this
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: situation, which is maybe not so
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: optimistic. But still it's it's what's going on. This is a reality. This shows that being a prison officer today is one of the tougher jobs you can have in the public sector, and we try as an organization, a professional association, to highlight.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: that this is also something that decision makers, leaders, etc. Has to take into consideration when it comes to
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: staffing levels, training resources and other kinds of staff wellbeing efforts being made.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And, as you know, just the basic job of being a prison officer is challenging in itself, balancing security with the rehabilitation, and also the regular care of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: of the
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: of people in prison. So all that together is sort of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: painting, maybe a little bit of a
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: pessimistic image, but I think it's more important to be realistic than sort of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: painting it as in brighter colors, because what we see now is several quite serious issues for for our members.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So I think I mean, this
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: is causing stress among our staff
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: in prisons, and more long term. Of course, that also affects job satisfaction, and the probability that you will stay in this position. So
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: again it all, it's all connected, and we can't work on just one thing only. We need to approach this
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: holistically and keep several tracks.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Running at the same time to improve conditions for prison staff.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I think I'll stop there for now, and maybe leave the floor to someone else.
John Scott: Well, ma, maybe be a good idea to go straight to Croatia and ask what beavers perception of those staffing challenges is, and we can get some illustrations from Croatia about retention and recruitment issues. What have you got to say about that?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Well, first, st I would say that my focus will be definitely onto staff, because it's my area.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So what I want to do first, st maybe give just a very short context of Croatian prison and probation system, because just to have an idea
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: what are maybe some few numbers are.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So we are part of the same directorate, probation and prison service. For a few years now our directorate is part of ministry of justice, public administration, and digital transformation. That's new.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Croatia is very small countries. We are talking about less than 4 million inhabitants.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: We are all over the Europe, but in Croatia it's less than 4 million inhabitants. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: under our director, there are 2,700 employees working. So, including our head offices, both, and practitioners.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So we are talking about more than 4,000 in car
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: incarcerated people. So we have
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: under our directorate 25 organizational units, including prisons, penitentiaries, diagnostic Center juvenile correctional institution and training center. And
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: when we talk about probation, we are talking about 14 probation offices around country. So why am I saying this?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think it's a very much different approach. When you have small country and this kind of numbers of stuff.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it's for some things it's much easier to organize some things like
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: recruitment educational programs, training center programs and things like that. But for some things
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it is not because if you have everything in your capital city, it's like, it's a small country it's possible to organize. But of course, for some regions it's much harder to be part of some things.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and saying that it it has effect, of course, to all of the topics I'm going to say about. And I will start 1st with recruitment topic.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: because I think it has a lot of lot of things regarding resilience of stuff.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Because when we see perspective for many years this actually hasn't been a subject of concern, because working in prisons.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it was very attractive in terms of better working conditions, benefits, salary, early retirement as well as this.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: the safety of itself, like having a job.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: when we see it like only fewer years back, we didn't have anything to do with this topic.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And now, because in the past we had so many candidates for job openings. So it was easy when there was a job a lot of people were applying for that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: today. The issue is
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: like how many people will even apply to the job. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it's very hard. Are we thinking now to have a good selection process recruitment? Or are we taking anyone
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: here? And what are the consequences.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Okay?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So nowadays it's not just about prison stuff. In general, it's not easy to find workers for any profession in Croatia. So significant number of people have moved to better paying countries in the Europe and beyond.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And regarding recruit recruitment, I think our focus should be now on how to attract the right people for the job, that the way it's for them, despite these challenges.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: because we talk a lot. About the good Pr, but that's not the end of the story, because in Croatia we are making extra efforts to present a more positive and realistic image of the system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So you can see when you go online, there are a lot of Internet articles that are not associated just to a crime to like
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: bad news.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: More and more content is being written in a positive context, and that's good. But, for example, like we, we had a lot of joint exercise, our correctional officers with external intervention, teams, forces and military. We have a lot of positive posters about getting into service.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and we have a lot of successful stories in agriculture, about production, in prisons, etc.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: That's good way to attract people to our system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And the
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think we are very far away from the point where children will not just be saying, I want to be a pilot, or I want to be a doctor, but also say, I want to be a correctional officer or prison staff member. But
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: this is a nice way to promote us like let's go positive with the system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: But what is often
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: mentioned in our system is, the story of the young people. I will call that the story of the young people who are often unfairly accused of not being what we want them to be.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: that they look at the screens, that they are not modest, that they are not capable or motivated like our generations. That's usually the sentence.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and we say that they don't listen, and so on.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think, regarding recruit recruitment. We are making a mistake here, which is that instead of focusing on what they are not. We should invest energy in learning from them what
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: what they they are and what new things they can bring into system. I think that's also like some interesting topic, for when I'm looking on recruitment process.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: so not forcing them to repeat what we did, maybe some things that we see as a laziness, maybe, or perhaps it is a better use of time.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and maybe they do some things in an easier way.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So I think we need to teach and listen to each other and include best ideas from both sides. I think that's also a topic.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Yep. Do I see.
Jo Clarke: Yeah, I've got up in front of me an article that was written by Professor Tony Blockley at Leeds University. I will send it, and maybe even
Jo Clarke: the website. And Cj. Would like to put it up. He was talking about police recruitment and talking about the fact we're recruiting in
Jo Clarke: in our own image.
Jo Clarke: So if if we're trying to recruit Gen. Z. From the image of, in my case, a nearly 60 year old woman, who grew up in a completely different culture. We are always going to fail. So I completely agree with you. And I think we need to understand the needs of Gen. Z and recognise that we are recruiting people. We're not recruiting a job role anymore.
Jo Clarke: People don't want a job for life anymore. They don't look for the financial security that perhaps we were. I was encouraged to do. I can't talk about you 2 much younger than me, but even for me it was a job for life and job security. And that's not of interest to Gen. Z. Younger people who have grown up in the technological age, who are completely at home
Jo Clarke: with digitalisation and everything else. They want completely different things. So we need to start recruiting the people to the role we need to understand their values. Do you want to join criminal justice because you're interested in rehabilitation, or you want to do something worthy and make a difference in the world? Or are you looking at it because it's a uniform discipline service where you get to be authoritarian and practice power, which I think would speak to some of the things Gustav was speaking to, and I think both those things are absolutely reasonable
Jo Clarke: motivations for joining the prison service. We don't need a whole load of people like me, who want to do good and rescue everybody. We do need people who are disciplinarian, who practise their authority and their power in a compassionate and benign way, obviously going back to what we were saying earlier about not being abusive, and
Jo Clarke: and so on, or neglectful. But we need to think about what are the needs of the service services.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Yeah, to me.
Jo Clarke: And how do we recruit the person to the role and not recruit for the role? How do we understand the values of the people that we're recruiting. So that was really prompted. But I mean, I could say so much more. But that was really
Jo Clarke: yeah good stuff.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Yeah, I I just want to sort of continue on the same path, because I think it's
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: very important with the new generations to to
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I went to a very nice presentation here in the Hague and the Congress of Probation and Parole a month ago.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and there was a presentation from a strategic Hr. Expert, and she said that we have to stop thinking in the sense of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: buying workforce, but rather building workforce. And I think that was a very good image for me, even in my own job, you know, because it's very hard to find qualified staff in the Netherlands. It's like just in my region here, it's like half a million vacancies.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So so it's it's very hard to find stuff. So so so then you have to start thinking rather in building
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: competence than
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: you know, recruiting it even, or, you know, buying it from the market. So it's a completely reset of how you should think, as a manager and recruiting company or service.
Jo Clarke: I'm really curious, you know, that we, every sector is having problems, recruiting people. Where is everybody?
Jo Clarke: What are they doing.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Getting older.
Jo Clarke: That's what it is. But the population is growing so fast is it?
Jo Clarke: Is it that we just don't have the numbers of people we need, and therefore really need to make this work attractive to people because it is amazing work. It's extraordinary working in prison.
Jo Clarke: And I think you know the reactions that I've had moving out of prison into corporate and the charity sector.
Jo Clarke: I'm fairly confident that the success comes from people thinking.
Jo Clarke: crikey, if you can survive in a prison
Jo Clarke: and thrive in a prison and learn so much in a prison. That's an extraordinary
Jo Clarke: thing to have done. Then then why are other people not seeing prison work as something so extraordinary and actually so privileged, because it's probably the only profession
Jo Clarke: where where you don't get a glimpse of it somehow. You know, we understand what our health services are like. We see police staff on the streets. We understand about policing. People don't know about prison
Jo Clarke: because it's such a closed environment, and it is such a privilege to work in one despite all the challenges. But, man, do you learn stuff doing that.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Yep.
John Scott: So it happens behind closed doors.
Jo Clarke: Yeah.
John Scott: And
John Scott: people have to imagine and find ways of identifying with that type of work
John Scott: we were talking about. If we hold with recruitment.
John Scott: if people are not going to have a single linear career within one institution or one profession.
John Scott: I'm wondering to look to Gustaf and Eva. How can you make
John Scott: working in prisons
John Scott: fits better into a portfolio
John Scott: that you could maybe work for 3 to 5 years in a prison setting, gain skills, gain experience, and then take it somewhere else. Is that maybe something that
John Scott: institutions, organizations need to think about.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Eva, you want to start.
John Scott: Please, do.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: You can go on, Gustav. I'm still into that topic. I want to add something before. But yes, I will join you.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, okay, let's start big, then. So I think to be honest, that
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So the state needs to
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: activate as one employer rather than having agencies competing with each other. So police and defence forces cannot compete with prison and probation or other agencies in the same sector. So I think it's
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: important that the State to attract talents, to start with needs to have more of a unified employer strategy and allow people to move between different jobs.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and there are so many thresholds, and, let's say.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: obstacles for moving between sectors within the State in some European countries is almost that your
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: imprisoned. If you work in prison, you can't move to any other profession. You can't even move to another prison to work, because
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: there has to be a vacancy there. There's no one promoting you to change position. Even so, so, it's it's really a rigid system. And I think for the sheer survival of these services you have to start, think bigger than only the prison service you have to start. Think about the State as an employer.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: but that's, of course, the bigger picture. But in terms of of attractiveness I think there's a lot to do. But I think you have to start again with the narrative. So I think I mean prisons. I mean, I used to work in probation. That's hard to explain to people. Most people at least know what a prison is
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: probation is impossible.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: a.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I would say that the the general image or prisons are very much
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: affected by media, which is mainly reporting about incidents
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and then popular culture where prisons are depicted as
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: places of terror. Basically. So so I think that is sort of a narrative that we want to change as Europris as well. So we have that in our coming strategy actually to start working more on the public, let's say, awareness of what prison work means.
John Scott: Hmm! Yup, Eva, let's come back to your agenda. Well, how would you lose.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Yeah, I just won't.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I wanted to add a few things, I I think. Yes, changing work, position, even in in prison system or probation service among
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: each other in the same directory. It sometimes is very hard. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: for me, I think it is important to actually allow people to try some things. So we were doing some good examples of job shadowing like people from probation service, coming one day to prison and
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: on the other way around. And we have some good examples of people transferring from one system, like maybe social service to prison service and things like that. I think
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it it is happening, but very slow. And people while they're waiting, they they lose their like motivation, and they go away. So for me, I think it's too long process. It should be more fluid
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and sorry. I just wanted to add that we don't forget somebody about when we talk about recruitment. Yes, young people, and
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: to learn their language. But I think when we talk about maybe security stuff more like judicial police officers, and etc. We have an age limit of
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: giving them opportunity to be employed in our prison system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So for me, it's like, why do we put age limit? I think we should reconsider because times are changing, people live much longer, and
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: for me, when I'm comparing some of my colleagues like maybe some colleagues in forties or fifties. Sometimes they are more in better physical shape than younger
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: people. And do we need to recruit somebody only because it's young, because we have maybe opportunity to bring someone in system with a great experience like with healthy and mature way of thinking. So why don't we consider of moving limited? That's the creation story we don't have. We have that age limited at this point. It's 35 for judicial police officers.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: It's uniform security stuff.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: E.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: For me. Why, why not to think of? I know in some European country there is no limit, and in some there is so maybe just example. I think there is a place for everybody, cause we are missing people. So, Joe, I saw your hand and.
Jo Clarke: Hmm.
Jo Clarke: no. I always always have so much to say about these things, because I don't absolutely agree. It seems crazy to have an age limit. And recently we've
Jo Clarke: been involved in training new recruits into various of our private sector prisons, and they are recruiting older staff. And it's so to be celebrated because they bring so much maturity, stability, and they bring stuff that as a younger member of staff and I was 25 and joined the prison service. My brain was still developing. So in fact, if we're only going to recruit younger people, we're asking for trouble, not because younger
Jo Clarke: aren't marvellous, but because there's still so much learning to do. And we know from neuroscience that we're not really fully formed till our mid to late twenties. So we're so missing an opportunity if we don't pick people up. But what I wanted to also comment on was
Jo Clarke: the unified employment strategy. Because I've been recently been invited to another country in
Jo Clarke: somewhere miles away, which I shan't mention yet, because the work's not formalised. But one of the issues they have is it's a country with a fantastic tourism industry. And what happens is that people trained to work in the prisons, and they get really good training, and then they leave and go and be security guards in a tourist resort. And I was just in idly discussing exactly what Gustav was saying is, why is there not a relationship between the security
Jo Clarke: industry and the prison industry, and people can rotate around them, because the prison industry there requires people to move away from home because of the geographical landscape. They have to move away from home for 9 months of the year. That's really hard to ask people to do that. That's not treating somebody as a whole person. That's looking at the job role and trying to squeeze people into fit. And that's probably partly where our problems are.
Jo Clarke: So I think the idea of saying this is a state employment. You may have a particular interest in working in a prison, but we might also require you to do policing, or to do security, or to do the army or other of those other discipline services. But I think the problem is.
Jo Clarke: and at the risk of being a bit political. Our politicians are scared rigid of doing anything different because they want to stay in power, and you'll probably have seen over here with the General Election coming up in an attempt to appeal to older voters. Our current governing parties suggesting Bring about national service. It's just hilarious, really. I'm sure there are some advantages, but it just goes to show that
Jo Clarke: the the politicians are not seeing the whole picture, and the civil servants who really run government are not in a position to instigate the kind of change that we're talking about here.
Jo Clarke: And I think we need a radical wake up call
Jo Clarke: if we're going to keep funding or keep running our public services in a way that is humane and compassionate, because what's happening in the Uk at the moment, and Gustav was saying about the overcrowding, because our Goto response appears to be to lock people up. I mean, how unintelligent is that!
Jo Clarke: How unintelligent is that then treat people dreadfully
Jo Clarke: when they are.
John Scott: Shall we? Shall we never apologize, Jerry? Let's.
Jo Clarke: Good.
John Scott: That is an opportunity to move
John Scott: from the issue of recruitment
John Scott: to the, in my view, completely alive topic of retaining people once you've recruited them.
John Scott: Because
John Scott: I mean, Joe, you use the illustration of people in the in the country being forced to live apart from their families for 9 months
John Scott: there may be other
John Scott: re retention issues that we could give attention to. So good stuff when you were giving the overview
John Scott: staff retention.
John Scott: which I think is often taught so about is turnover
John Scott: people not staying long.
John Scott: men and women not finding the work
John Scott: either attractive enough or
John Scott: or weren't paid enough or rewarding enough to stay.
John Scott: So retention is is clearly an issue. So perhaps we could turn our attention to thinking about whether there are solutions about Turnover.
John Scott: So who would like to kick off on that.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I can start and I think I mean.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: so what is what is work? Satisfaction, work, satisfaction is relative. It's a sort of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: evolving over time both in your personal life over time, when you're 2025, you can work 14 HA day, and you're happy still. And when you're 35. With kids, you have a different preference. So it's it's you can't really say that there is one job that fits all, so to say
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and then, when you look at work satisfaction?
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: you. Every job has this requirement, so to say, so so, and not everyone is fit to work in prisons. As I mentioned, I work in remand prisons when I was 20 years old, and
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and or 24 sorry, and my friends told me like, how can you work? There would never be able to work in such an environment. So so it's it's it's also not for everyone we have to admit that, and that is which to me also be, let's say, a more exclusive job in that sense, because if you manage to work in prisons, you're really, really.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: let's say, qualified person, if you manage to balance these roles that I mentioned with security and rehabilitation, having that sort of trust respecting your personal sphere, etc. So I think
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: in terms of work satisfaction, because that is
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: basically costly related to retention. I think that is, we have to sort of acknowledge the the positive sides of the job, and at the same time be aware of the difficulties.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and not sort of hiding those away, but rather addressing them one by one, and that has to happen from team leaders all the way up to the Director general, like acknowledging these challenges and then show your your Co. Workers that you try to address them.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: because people tend to be quite
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: resilient if you show them that you're working on it, so to say.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: But if nothing is done, if you're just left alone, that's neglect. As we talked about in the beginning, then people start to get a pathic and start looking for other jobs. But if you know that your manager and his manager or her manager is working on this to find a solution that will keep you going as well. So I think it's very much of a leadership
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: question, because it will never be paradise to work in peace prison. Then you should have another job, you know.
John Scott: What's a Croatian
John Scott: view about retention?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Well, we actually had outside Institute that is, at this moment doing another research about satisfaction while working in prisons
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: with prisoners and with prison officers, but also with prisoners like, how do they feel inside the prisons?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And we done our little small qualitative study focus groups with several prison correctional staff educational institutions and
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: with the probation offices.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: we were interested in how people see rewards in system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: whether they had also whether they had thought about leaving, and what would help them to stay in system that was very important to
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: like see much deeper.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So we mostly expected regarding our salaries that are not very big. We expected the focus on material things
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and which is not excluded. Of course people want bigger salaries
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: as well as they have desire for more days off. But majority of participants actually focus on relationships inside prisons like with their superiors, with their colleagues.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: especially
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: on, they focused on quality, feedback on their work
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: great greater support.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: appreciation, praise.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: like the small words of Thank you for doing it in a nice way, and thank you.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: You were very good at this.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and they really focused on opportunity to be recognized in a way that their their skills in in work and assigned tasks are
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: somewhere put somewhere to be used like, if I have one good skill, please
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: go ahead.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Can you? Can you recognize that? That was the idea? If I have it please?
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Can you, can you
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: be a person that can recognize my skills? So the other thing is actually
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: the idea that people really enjoy of pests on their knowledge, like, if they have a good knowledge about something, they are happy and open to share in a way of being mentors and things like that.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So based on that research, we also conducted a quantity study
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: online survey. And actually people, we, we send it to all prison and probation stuff. So we were kind of, let's say, surprised that people put very high grades
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: on that kind of non material things like being recognized and things like that. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I I think,
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: In our system. In recent years we are actually introduced many measures aimed to support officers, because since 2,017, there have been many trainings conducted not only aimed
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: like at specialized skills for better work with prisoners, but also we are increasing, investing in trainings aimed to strengthen the officer's capacity, mental health topics, and things like that.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and also for the last few years from the Department of Psychological Support, there are a lot of trainings that are supporting management in better communication with their
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: stuff, and how to support employees in seeking psychological support and things like that.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think there there is a lot of things going on in in a way that actually like from 2,018, there is a psychological support department that we we didn't have that we were, let's say, dreaming about it. How can we be supported and not just be punished when something bad happened like when an incident occur? So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think,
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: considering the cultural environment, there is a lot of prejudice of seeking good training or psychological help. But one of the key activities is raising awareness and the importance of mental health care. I will say a few few words more about our other activities, but I see joy. So maybe she's.
Jo Clarke: No, you carry on. You carry on Eva's. It's just really interesting. I just wanted to pick up on a few things, but carry on.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Ok. Great. So what we also recognize that more and more trainings and preventive activities needs to be tailored to each prison or correctional facilities
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: as they have their own specific specific things, because we approach individually to prisoners.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and the idea is like the approach we nurtured towards inmates individually and personals. We need to do it in the same way to to the staff like it's very specific to work in a small prison, big prison or open penitentiary or closed one. So it is important to to follow the the atmosphere that is going on between staff.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: also what we done we found one day in a year that will mark mental Health Day for us in our system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: And it is like the way where, where we do various educational and team activities and sport activities. And let's, let's say, do some fun things.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: It's a symbolic date when our department of Psychological Support was founded more than 5 years ago.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and also
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I wanted to say that during the years of working in prison system
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: it is easy to fall into trap where you don't see the changes like you always think we are stuck to the bad things. But
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think when you put yourself outside individual perspective and try to see what what has been changed during years. You can see a lot of things
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: are actually moving. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: today we have mindfulness trainings in our in creation service. Well, if somebody tell me I don't know, in 2,016 that we're going to have
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: trainings that are specific for staff, not for being better like in special trainings with prisoners. I would say you're crazy. But today we we have a lot of
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: things going on for
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: trying to be open and to hear stuff to to retain, to make a change.
John Scott: Well, that's a real investment in
John Scott: the Star which
John Scott: surely would help with retention. Joe, you reflect on what you've heard about what can help with retention.
Jo Clarke: Well, it's it's so interesting to hear that what's come out of your recent research is that it's not the material things that matters to staff, and I'm just going to expand that. So it's not the material things that matters to people in all the organisations I work in. If you say, what does your organization focus on to attract and retain staff? They'll say salary and benefits. And if you say and what's important to you, they'll say, being seen, heard, and understood.
Jo Clarke: which is exactly what you've just said. And it's the same the world over, because we're human beings, you know, we want to be recognized for what we do. We want to be understood for the individuals that we are.
Jo Clarke: The principle of volunteering is that essentially, if people's values are met, they'll work for nothing. I'm not obviously suggesting that people work for nothing. But can you just imagine that if your values were so aligned and so attuned with what you were doing for your job, and you felt so recognised and valued and looked after that. If you won the lottery you'd still go into work every day.
Jo Clarke: Those are the environments that I think we need to be creating. And we do that by understanding our people. And that makes perfect sense to me, and it is not rocket science, and it doesn't cost a fortune.
Jo Clarke: I was really interesting to hear even what you were saying about the training of managers, because we so often promote people on technical ability.
Jo Clarke: And we don't train people to manage people. We train people to manage processes and procedures. And I've been musing lately with the idea of why don't we just promote people to be people managers who are really good at it? And that's what they want to do, and then promote other people to manage the processes and policies and procedures. Why don't we split those things off? Because some people are naturally just brilliant managers, and I'm sure everyone listening will be able to think of at least one person that they would walk through fire for.
Jo Clarke: And I'm lucky enough that I've had a few of those in my working life, so I've been so lucky. I've also had managers that I would probably walk away from if they've broken their leg because they had. No, that's really cruel, isn't it? I'm not really like that. I was going to say something even ruder. But anyway.
Jo Clarke: so we, you know, to be able to have those people that make us feel valued and understood and recognised in the way that the Croatian staff have described in the way British staff describe. American staff, describe other countries in Europe, describe. This is not even a cultural difference. This is what people want, and if we're
Jo Clarke: if we're blind and deaf to that, then we deserve to not retain people, I mean because it's so easy to do. And the other thing I just wanted to comment on as well is about psychological support. Because obviously, I'm a psychologist, and I'm often the last person that somebody wants to speak to, because there is still that suggestion that if we
Jo Clarke: need a psychologist, there's something wrong with us
Jo Clarke: which actually is a bit crazy if you think about. If we need a doctor, we don't hesitate going, do we? We don't think we're all vulnerable because we need to get some medical intervention, and we should feel the same way about our minds. In my view, we should treat our minds the way we do our body. I think we treat incidents at work as a psychological injury. I can't bear the post traumatic stress, disorder, labour. It's not a disorder. Somebody has been psychologically injured. We treat them the same way as if they've been physically injured. But we don't.
Jo Clarke: It scares people so we we don't look after staff in the same way, and there's still that stigma attached. So, in my view, what we ought to be aiming for
Jo Clarke: is a psychologically informed strategy that sees someone right through their career
Jo Clarke: and empowers them with psycho. Education gives them knowledge. And we've done some work over here actually, training staff in what we call trauma preparedness, because we know when people are going to work in prison. They are going to experience trauma either directly, because they get assaulted or threatened, or taken hostage, or get injured or secondary trauma in that they
Jo Clarke: will hear offenders talking about. They're offending. They're going to see families come in really distressed. We're exposing people to trauma all of the time, and yet we don't prepare them for it. And the work we've done here with a small group of staff working in a young offender institution is to train them
Jo Clarke: in some of those executive function, resilience skills, and in an understanding of trauma. And what it means trauma preparedness. And what we found is that those staff who have received that training not only are more likely to stay in the job for longer, to not go off sick as easily but fascinatingly.
Jo Clarke: More likely to get involved in incidents at work, but less likely to get assaulted.
Jo Clarke: And that was a really interesting finding, and I think my hypothesis around. That is that because they understand trauma.
Jo Clarke: and they understand it from their own perspective, they probably approach prisoners differently, because prisoners, by the very nature of being in prison are going to be traumatised too. So if we're going to retain staff, we really need to empower them. We need to give them the competence, recognise the impact they have. Make sure the job has meaning to them, and that they have some autonomy
Jo Clarke: in the way that they do their work. And for me, that's what organisational resilience is. It's about meaning impact, autonomy and competence. And if you can get those 4 things in place for staff, they are likely to flourish, they are likely to thrive, and we've got some evidence for that, so I'll stop there and hand it back over to you.
John Scott: Yeah, what I'd like to do is explore the connection
John Scott: between in an individual resilience
John Scott: and organisational resilience.
John Scott: If we go back a few years
John Scott: in. Certainly in some cultures
John Scott: saying, Prisons stop. We're just expected to keep quiet. Get on with the job.
John Scott: I'm I'm thinking that that is now
John Scott: not
John Scott: the right way of handling
John Scott: an incident or pressure.
John Scott: wondering if we could look at how an organisation
John Scott: be resilient, but also can assist
John Scott: individuals to be resilient.
John Scott: Good stuff. Perhaps you could
John Scott: set set us off on our answering that question.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Yeah. So I I would like to pick up on something that Eva mentioned.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: in terms of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: what sort of empower staff
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and one of those things you mentioned in your research was to mentoring others and training new colleagues at work, etc.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And so I think that that is something to really acknowledge.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Let's.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: When you try to build a resilient organization, because if you have sort of this
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: will to teach and also will to learn. All through the organization that is sort of opening up also for for discussions on topics, like mental health or vulnerabilities, or or trauma, or or or or also needs new needs occurring within the let's say the the people in our care. So I think.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: trying to move from a
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: let's say, and a
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: an organization that is focused on order and discipline to be more of a learning organization.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I don't think there is a conflict there, but I think it's more of tradition that Christmas has been very focused on compliance and and order, and
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: only getting feedback when when something goes wrong. So I think that that's this sort of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: that. And that is definitely not like a narrative that someone is.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: you know, painting on top of prisons. It's coming from within, so that has to change from within. I think
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: so, moving towards a more learning approach and more learning for life. Maybe so, if you acknowledge that I think also, Staff would be more stimulated and willing to stay.
John Scott: Very powerful point. Eva.
John Scott: Resilient organizations, resilient individuals.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Yeah, I would like to the things I said before, it's more like.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: yes, organizations should provide support to staff definitely, let's say, through education through psychological support. We have also supervisions as a supportive group.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I think we are missing the things that Joe said about having better education, of understanding trauma of prisoners. I think we are lacking of that. But we are increasing education, of
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: psychological support and mental health awareness. It's something that is now also part of our basic course for uniform stuff and for other stuff. So we are increasing those things.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: But what I wanted to also say that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: what seems extremely important to me is strengthening our own responsibility for how we are.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: In a way, of course, organization needs to give some tools and has to put some kind of possibilities for people.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: but I mean.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: there is no doubt about that, but strengthening the responsibility of individuals for themselves. Everyone's resilience is strengthened in a way they feel part of the system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and according to research, this gives people a sense of participation which is an important part of encouraging motivation.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Say that I will give you example. During some of our education the the most important, the most common sentence was system didn't give me anything, or
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: i i i would do nothing, because nobody cares.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: But I think it's important to give back responsibility to individuals in a way. Ok, but who makes the system
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: are we all part of the system.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: so bringing back individuals to being aware of their responsibilities, not just for themselves, but also for others for prisoners? I think it is strengthening their resilience also.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: and of course it makes a nicer supportive network for others, and that has everything to do with making
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: organization being more resilient, having people aware of their own responsibilities. So for me, it's it's like
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: there is no
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: one side and the other. We are all one big network needs to do it together and making like
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: smaller small steps and and building organization in that way. So.
John Scott: Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. Your.
Jo Clarke: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna actually have a go at defining both individual and organizational resilience. But I'm just gonna build on what Eva said about about individual responsibility, because it's critical. We disempower people if we take away their their duty of care to themselves. So what we we talk about on our on some of our training is our 3 duties of or 3 duties of care. There's a duty of care of the organization to the individual, and that's usually enshrined in law.
Jo Clarke: But an individual also has a duty of care to the organisation, and that's enshrined in their contract, so they need to come to work fit to work. They need to be able to speak up and describe things that are stopping or getting in the way of them. Having a good day at work, and, as you say, we are all part of the culture. The culture is us, and every time we stand back, and we don't speak up, we're contributing to a silent culture which is really unhealthy.
Jo Clarke: and the 3rd duty of care is our duty of care to ourselves and to each other, which I think you touched on, and I find it really helpful to encapsulate duty of care into those 3 areas, because I think it gets people thinking as well about their own duty of care to their employer and to themselves. But I think there's a really lovely definition of organisational resilience that comes from
Jo Clarke: what's known as the critical occupations. Literature so
Jo Clarke: working in prison would be considered a critical occupation in that it exposes people to trauma that can exert critical impact on their psychological wellbeing. So it was a phrase coined by Douglas Patton, John Vilante. So Douglas Patton works in disaster, recovery and researching, and John Vilante was a New York police officer and went into academia. And I think it's a very fitting phrase for people working in prisons because it is a
Jo Clarke: can exert critical pressure. But the key part of the definition is under certain circumstances, and we need to understand those certain circumstances when critical pressure can be exerted, and they would define organisational resilience as the ability of individuals, teams, and organisations to be able to render challenging events meaningful, manageable, and coherent through drawing on individual
Jo Clarke: and collective resources. So in prisons, when critical incidents happen to be able to draw on all the individuals and the organisational processes that help us make meaning of those incidents in order to thrive. So that really, I think captures what you were saying, Eva, about. It's a joint thing. It isn't just the organisation. It isn't just the staff, it's all of us, and bringing what resources we have to render critical incidents meaning manageable, manageable and coherent.
Jo Clarke: The individual element of that, I think, is tougher, because the research is quite complicated, and some people do appear to be born naturally resilient. The researchers suggest about a 3rd of people are
Jo Clarke: for us at Petros we define resilience as the ability to respond adaptively to the pressure that you're under. And sometimes the adaptive response is to soldier on it is to keep going.
Jo Clarke: But actually, sometimes the adaptive response is to stop and take a break. Sometimes the adaptive response is to ask for help
Jo Clarke: because resilient people aren't people who think they can do everything by themselves.
Jo Clarke: Sometimes the adaptive response is to have a good cry because it's not that resilient people aren't emotional. It's just that they know how to manage and express their emotions. So it's like a set of skills. And I think resilience is recently, in the last 20 years, although psychologists have only been using the term for about 50 years because it originally comes from engineering, people think that resilient people are strong, and therefore, if you're not resilient, you're weak, and I think that's really unhelpful. I think resilient. People are skilled
Jo Clarke: and not resilient. People haven't got the skills yet, and if they haven't got the skills, let's train them.
Jo Clarke: And those are the things that we can train as we put people into these critical roles where we know that they're going to have psychological pressure exerted on them. Let's give them the skills to manage that pressure adaptively. So those would be my definitions, John, I'm sure Ava and Gustav have comments on that, but I hope that's helpful.
John Scott: Well.
John Scott: thank you very much, because that's
John Scott: given as a framework for for the discussion which has been good now.
John Scott: you probably aren't aware of how fast time is blown by, because, you've been talking with such focus. It's been brilliant. I'm gonna ask each of you maybe just to have a a reflection on our discussions about the people side of working in prisons. I'm gonna come, start with you. Good stuff. Do you have any? A big picture? Final thoughts that you'd like to share with us?
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Yeah, I think I think our conversation today is really sort of illustrated. The the the wide range of of topics that you need to to take into consideration when you talk about resilience. And the we talked about the different levels of responsibility, which I think is very important that every individual has the responsibility to take care of their own resilience.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And I agree with with the both Joe and Eva that that, you, of course, have a certain sort of setup of skills when it comes to to resilience, but they can also be learned. So there is things you can do to improve your resilience
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and the moving on to to the leadership level.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: I would say that, there is a lot you can do. And 1st second line managers definitely, in terms of follow up and and support psychological support.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: And from the organizational perspective it has to do with, of course, work hours. And all these structural matters. But again, also
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: how to affect, let's say, the work. Satisfaction in terms of mobility between positions, even professions, maybe or agencies, but also creating this image of public sector to be relevant and interesting and fascinating place, to be to work, to spend your life.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: So I think that those are sort of different levels of
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: of interest. And I I just when we had our conversation today, I I
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: sort of can't really
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: a.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: Enough underlying the the need for individual resilience.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: When working our sector, because
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: something that is very demanding is the that our, our, our, the people in our care, has immense needs.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: They are endless. Basically. So you have to have. So that kind of sort of integrity to separate yourself from those needs sometimes, because otherwise you'll be be con Co. Completely consumed by it.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: and the and the that happens sometimes to younger officers that they get so sort of committed with the needs of the of the prisoners that they they basically burn out because they can't limit their their their ambitions. So i i i think of this quote sometimes also in my own work, that you can't pour from empty buckets, and I think that's very good.
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: quote to keep in mind when you when you when you work as a professional if you work as a manager that you have to take care of yourself and your own limits, and honor those limits, otherwise you can't take care of others. So I think that's a a good conclusion, to to
Gustav Tallving, EuroPris: wrap up with.
John Scott: Fine and and and and the good advice to to pass on to colleagues.
John Scott: Eva, do you have a final reflection, and maybe a piece of advice to pass on as well.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: Well, I will not repeat what Gustav says, I said. I will agree on that. I would just remind ourselves all of us, that working in prison environments means often that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: people are changing, and if they are resilient, meaning that they are not staying the same, that after
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: a very hard situation happened, working with inmates, with offenders
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: that leaves Mark. And I think it's it's it's in a way healthy that we change.
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: So saying that I would say that we have to remind ourselves that prison system and probation service is changing in a way that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: changes are not bad. It only means that our organization is resilient in a way that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: these times are changing, changing it. So I think we should be open for that. Being different. Being
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: in some kind of changes doesn't need to be something frightening. It means that we are adopting that we are not resisting, that we are being resilient. So that's something that
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: I'm I'm thinking of when when I'm
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: kind of summarizing all what we said today. So
Iva Prskalo, Croatia: that's that's from me.
John Scott: Thank you. Joe. A reflection and a piece of advice.
Jo Clarke: Reflection is that I wish governments would wake up to
Jo Clarke: some of the harm that's caused by agendas that really don't serve our communities. Controversial, I know, but it was lovely to hear what's going on in Croatia, and that's obviously endorsed in a public sector, and it would be lovely to hear more of that
Jo Clarke: around the world, but particularly at home at the moment
Jo Clarke: my advice to staff working in criminal justice, prisons and probation is, take time to reflect on the things you love about what you do. Remind yourself about, why you're doing it, and the importance of that job, and the value of that job and the status of that job. And if things are getting in the way of you thriving, do everything you can
Jo Clarke: to to overcome the things that are getting in the way rather than leave.
Jo Clarke: Because we need experience. We. We need the wisdom that comes from doing the job for periods of time.
Jo Clarke: and your colleagues need that too. So we all need each other. So look after yourselves out there.
John Scott: Good advice
John Scott: and with that we have
John Scott: come to the end of our podcast
John Scott: my final reflection is that
John Scott: I'm hoping a lot of bosses of prison and correctional services around Europe are, gonna listen to this podcast because recruitment, retention and resilience are big issues, right across, not just Europe, but across the world. And I'm hoping that there are people listening who can make a difference in the way that they organize their structures as, and processes as well as their people.
John Scott: So thank you very much. To our 3 speakers, the staff, Telfee, Eva Pascalo, and Joe Clark.
John Scott: we are planning another, just psychology, podcast. And we're going to make a visit over to the United States next month. So keep a watch out for that and make sure you join us
John Scott: for that event.
John Scott: I'd also like you to listen to another Imcj, recent podcast. Which was done in partnership with the United Nations.
John Scott: which launched an international research report called
John Scott: digital rehabilitation in prisons, but really
John Scott: very relevant to some of the topics that we've talked about today. This was a 1st for Imc, J, so do catch that.
John Scott: Podcast if you can. Those are the IN, Cj website, and you'll follow the links there so that you can find the UN report.
John Scott: Thank you very much to everyone for attending, contributing, watching and listening.
John Scott: This event will also be available. It's a podcast and Youtube. So do encourage your colleagues to listen in
John Scott: and join the conversation by visiting Icj's website at
John Scott: criminal justice network.net.
John Scott: Goodbye. Everybody.