The Covid-19 pandemic brought sudden and significant changes to probation practice. The HMPPS Exceptional Delivery Model required staff and service users to interact in different ways, including making much greater use of the telephone to keep in touch. A small team of researchers (from the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Community Rehabilitation Company Research Unit and the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge) set out to explore case managers’ views of the benefits and limitations of different methods of remote communication. The research sought to answer two key questions:
- What practice methods, skills and technologies are currently being used by case managers?
- What current practice measures do case managers experience as valuable, with the potential to be retained and developed in the future?
