Prison Administration

Leadership concerns and management functions define the essential elements of prison administration. While for most prisons, there is not a formal title of “prison leader” or “prison manager,” there are persons in administrative positions who take on leadership roles and perform management duties. Leadership involves the articulation of both mission and vision, while management involves the accomplishment of specific tasks. Both leadership and management are needed for effective prison administration to exist. This piece will examine the following topics: drawing a distinction between leadership and management, the role of politics in prison administration, and the importance of correctional staff supervision and development. Finally, the article provides a model of leadership development found in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as an example of promoting effective prison administration.

Probation staff supervision: Valuing ‘me time’ within congested spaces

Probation staff supervision is an established professional practice tool, documented historically through the lens of the Probation Journal. This article charts Journal discussions surrounding staff supervision and places them alongside a recent research study examining current practice. Study findings indicate that staff value dedicated time and space for structured supervision that contains significant elements of a more clinical approach. Nevertheless, supervision functions within congested spaces in which managerial aspects of staff engagement encroach. Finding an accommodation between differing approaches appears challenging. More broadly, competing views resound within a landscape of looming professional registration and associated requirements of continuous professional development.

Student Management at Saint Aloysius School Dormitory

This study aims to obtain an understanding of the student management at the Saint Aloysius school dormitory in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The research applied a case study research method. It mainly involves the participation of four caretaker team members and ten students. The obtained data were collected through techniques, such as interviews, observations and document analysis. The research study involves the application of three concurrent data analysis techniques. The research led to the knowledge and the understanding that despite the dormitory’s geographical location and its small size, the caretakers at the involved school dormitory make an effort to provide most of the services and tasks required for an effective student management.Generally, the student management implemented at this specific school dormitory involves the establishment of different tasks and services. Important factors, including staff supervision and training, the establishment of the formal program, also need to be considered by the caretakers. Caretakers still need to make some effort to improve management services.

From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie: Researching Long-Term Social Work and Child Protection by Getting as Close as Possible to Practice and Organisational Life

Research into social work and child protection has begun to observe practice to find out what social workers actually do, however, no such ethnographic research has been done into long-term practice. This article outlines and analyses the methods used in a study of long-term social work and child protection practice. Researchers spent fifteen months embedded in two social work departments observing organisational practices, culture and staff supervision. We also regularly observed social worker’s encounters with children and families in a sample of thirty cases for up to a year, doing up to twenty-one observations of practice in the same cases. Family members were also interviewed up to 3 times during that time. This article argues that a methodology that gets as close as possible to practitioners and managers as they are doing the work and that takes a longitudinal approach can provide deep insights into what social work practice is, how helpful relationships with service users are established and sustained over time, or not, and the influence of organisations. The challenges and ethical dilemmas involved in doing long-term research that gets so close to social work teams, casework and service users for up to a year are considered.