Probation Officer Career Path

I also need to make sure that I can keep my feelings and emotions out of my work. This is good and bad, I will always have passion and empathy for the youth, however you cannot get caught up in their lives and feel bad for the actions they have done. I believe in tough love, but it is much harder when placed in that situation. Professionally we learn tasks overtime while we have hands on experience. The internship prepared me for this career path in so many ways. I learned about all the duties that the probation officers do on a daily basis. I learned how the different services intertwine with one another. This including surveillance, and court school. It has really taught me a lot about the system as a whole and what it takes day to day …show more content…
I would say that over all the biggest lesson I have learned is that every case is different. You cannot treat each child the same or each case the same. Backgrounds, environment and families really have an influence on the child. There are some children that would rather be on probation because they feel that it actually protects them from things in their life. Some of the girls are involved in trafficking and being a ward of the court actually keeps them safe from the streets and who owns them. These stories are so sad and until you can connect with the child it is hard to judge and put a label on the child. Learning how to relate to them so they feel comfortable talking to you is probably the hardest yet most rewarding part of the job. These kids do not trust anyone, so for them to open up is a great stride in the right direction. Learning the children will always be a task that can only get better each day with …show more content…
I couldn’t have asked for a better internship and staff to work with. I met goals that I set at the beginning of the summer. I made a positive impact on children, learned how to probation officers do hearing reports, worked on my communication skills, as well as computer data entry. Working with families is so important and I learned so many skills to relate to them. There are a few courses that really helped me such as juvenile correctional counseling and communications. Some courses that would be beneficial for my future in this career would be a computer class that focused on law enforcement programs and a foreign language, specifically Spanish. Personally I grew as in individual, learning how to be in the professional world and interact in that setting. I grew so much confidence and oral skills. I still need to work on how to learn from others than do things that seem backwards to me. I do not think my way is the best way, but some of the people do things that I haven’t quite understood yet. I learned so many duties that it takes to make the court system run smoothly, and what the probation officers do on a daily basis. Learning how to relate and talk to the kids to make them feel comfortable is so important. I will always give it my best to rehabilitate a child and help them see the successful path in life. This is harder with youth from a difficult background and environment, they