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Barking Dog?: Partnership and Effective Practice (From What Matters in Probation, P 122-145, 2004, George Mair, ed. -- NCJ-205375)

NCJ Number
205375
Author(s)
Judith Rumgay
Date Published
2004
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This chapter discusses the partnership enterprise within the What Works approach/agenda and the use of this partnership enterprise in order to secure an effective practice and maintain its integrity.
Abstract
Today’s probation service is currently involved in a drama of challenge and change that is shaking the foundations of the family home, and placing its faith for salvation in the drive for effectiveness that has become known as the What Works agenda. What Works must consider the implications of its struggle for those organizations with which the probation service is joined in partnership. This chapter explores an alternative pathway to the probation service’s survival; to reach out and call on the organizations with which the service is joined in partnership and seek their help. This chapter moves directly to issues in partnership of relevance to its central theme: the scale of the probation service’s partnership enterprise; alternative definitions of the crime problem that inform different routes to its resolution; and problems of exclusivity, effectiveness, and accountability. Contrasts are drawn throughout between the What Works approach and the partnership pathway through the challenges to securing its organizational mission and integrity. The partnership approach, properly presented, holds the promise of securing professional support through its appeal to the service’s established traditions.