Opening the Dialogue on Death: Navigating the Journey of Bereavement, Grief and Trauma Within Probation Delivery

As individuals we each hold our own experiences of bereavement and grief. Death affects us all, but our journeys of navigating this are profoundly personal, unique, complex and very much form part of our ongoing, and dynamic story. Open conversations about death are rare, especially when reflecting on the possibilities of impact and influence on a person's life moving forward. These inevitable experiences, occurring within both personal and social contexts highlight the role of emotion, relational work, and emotional labour. Particularly within the context of probation, they also underscore the recognition of trauma, addiction, and the impact of desistance from or persistence in crime. Within this article, we aim to shed light, provoke thought and invoke conversation. There has been research in prisons (Wilson 2011; Wilson et al 2022; Wilson 2023; Vaswani 2014, 2015 and 2018), but again, probation remains in the shadows.