Creating Supportive Spaces: Understanding if Trauma, Diversity, and Inclusivity Training for Probation and Parole Officers Influences Client Behaviour

Individuals serving community sentences represent a diverse population, with a variety of needs and unique lived experiences. Understanding how to support these clients to promote positive change is an important avenue of research. A new training curriculum—Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s Made-in-Ontario Core Correctional Practices (CCP) Model of Community Supervision- was designed to address this by training probation and parole officers on a set of behaviours described as Trauma Diversity and Inclusivity (TDI) pillars. The study seeks to investigate whether probation and parole officers use of TDI pillars increased post implementation of the ministry’s model. A sample of probation and parole officer case files for clients on probation (pre-training, n = 152, and post-training, n = 134) were coded to compare TDI use. This study also seeks to investigate if TDI skills correlate with client engagement and effort, and positive probation outcomes during supervision. The opinions and views expressed in this report reflect those of the author and not the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General. This project was done with the support of the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General.