Group supervision for prison officers: an orthopedagogical approach to emotional management

Abstract

ABSTRACTBackground: Prison Officers (POs) are in the front line of managing everyday encounters which can often be emotionally charged. POs ordinarily are not trained with a psychological mindedness to manage these encounters. Objective: The challenge is to develop a model of education and practice (orthopedagogy) that offers a level of psychological mindedness for POs which can in turn yield a safer prison wing milieu. A framework of reflective practice, which provides opportunities for POs to learn and apply the concept of projective identification (PI) is outlined. Data: Drawn from practitioner ethnography, the conduction of supervision groups for PO’s is described and attention is drawn to the dual roles of supervision as education as well as containing pastoral space. Conclusions: The focus on PI as the central tenet of the supervision for POs represents an innovation of education in the prison sector. Implications for practice are considered, both in terms of practice in secure forensic therapeutic communities and Psychologically Informed Planned Environments (PIPEs), as well as case for a more general level of application of psychoeducation across the prison estate, where a working knowledge of projective identification could improve transactions between prisoners and prison staff.