Risk assessment,the professional judgement model and organizational anxiety – a practitioner response to ‘In the eye of the storm: The implications of the Munro Child Protection Review for the future of probation’ by Wendy Fitzgibbon

Abstract

This article is a response to Wendy Fitzgibbon’s article ‘In the eye of the storm: The implications of the Munro Child Protection Review for the future of probation’. Fitzgibbon’s article (Fitzgibbon, 2012) offers a reflection on the similarities between the problems Eileen Munro identified in child protection practice, and those in probation. She questions whether a Munro Review is necessary for probation. The focus of Fitzgibbon’s article, like that of Munro’s Review, is on what is wrong with practice and policy, and what changes are needed – and what is likely given the current political and economic climate. This response seeks to further examine the challenges to best practice that Fitzgibbon explored, whilst looking ahead to the positive changes the new National Standards have the potential to foster. The climate of organizational anxiety is also discussed as a potential obstacle to any positive culture change.