PROBATIONET in this framework aimed to develop an innovative training model able to respond to the education and training needs of officers and workers involved in the probation process with a flexible and multidisciplinary approach as requested by each national Probation case management system. Particular attention was given to reconciliation and victim-offender mediation issues. Against the inhomogeneity of application at national level all European probation caseworks can be fitted into one of these 4 “domains” 1: Pre-Trial Provisions; 2: Non-Custodial Options; 3: Immediate Custody and 4: Early Release/Supervised Release. The PROBATIONET integrated training model applied to a common casework has given particular attention to the low-skilled professionals by increasing quality, supply and accessibility of continuing VET, validation of non-formal and informal learning, and promoting work-place learning. The PROBATIONET training model promoted the SENTITIVITY GROUP as a particularly effective psychosocial training methodology to treat groups with strong emotional involvement. Moreover, PROBATIONET represented a scheme for developing partnerships between SME VET providers, HEIs and Probation Justice Departments.
PROBATIONET project background derived from the Probation itself as a penal procedure globally applied and its complex context of case management in which Governmental Institutions and NGOs with their office workers and operators are involved. Probation first developed in the United States in 1841, since then in the World and Europe the national judicial systems applied it according to their own criminal laws but based on the same principle: a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court instead of serving time in prison. Prisons services have their own in-service education and training curricula, which correspond to the role and tasks of the different categories and to the aim and purpose of their work. Ideally, they should have their own training facilities but currently there is a lack of resources in most of Member States. In 2019 the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) completed the roadmap started in 2010 adopting the “guidelines regarding training and professional development of prison and probation staff”. These guidelines encourage Member States to put in place opportunities probation staff training and inter-agency and interdisciplinary work.