The Samoan Probation Service of today is a very different service to the one Lesley Campbell joined in October 2006.
Sent there on a year-long secondment, the Dunedin-based Community Probation & Psychological Services Area Manager found a service very much in need of technical expertise, support and staff development.
Lesley says while Samoa only has around 40 offenders on probation, 30 on parole and just under 200 in prison, the country’s probation service was struggling to keep tabs on its offenders and to work more effectively with those on community-based sentences.
Ministerial consultations between the Samoan and New Zealand governments resulted in New Zealand Aid contracting the New Zealand Department of Corrections to provide advice to the Samoa Probation and Parole Service.
“While I focused on the big picture of helping the Samoan Probation and Parole Service build its capability and capacity, Invercargill-based Senior Probation Officer Lou Avia provided equally valuable assistance by helping the Samoan staff develop their roles as probation officers and ensuring they had the skills to conduct their own staff training in future,” says Lesley.
“Between us, Lou and I helped the Samoan Probation and Parole Service to develop operational-based manuals for writing pre-sentence and pre-release reports, quality assurance processes and improved staff supervision and professional development.
Written to support Samoa’s new, recently implemented Criminal Justice and Young Offender legislation, the manuals are now being used for pre-sentence and pre-release report writing and the management of supervision and parole.
While she found the work challeng
ing, Lesley says she relished the opportunity to return to grassroots probation work and she looked forward to returning to Samoa this month to help staff with the final review of their manuals and to support new Principal Probation Officer Fa’agutu Va’alotu.
Her four-week trip would allow her to catch up with Fa’agutu who spent a year’s exchange in Mangere, Auckland before returning home in early December.
Dunedin-based Community Probation & Psychological Services Area Manager Lesley Campbell and Vanuatu-based New Zealander Chris King celebrate the end of a five-day interviewing and assessment training workshop that Chris delivered to Samoan Probation and Parole Service staff.
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