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What are the most pressing issues for people working for better outcomes for justice-involved young people in Victoria?

We asked that question at our network launch. It brought together academics, practitioners, policymakers, young people and people working with young people in contact with the justice system to think about what issues are most urgent to act on.

Our guests listened to speakers who addressed a range of issues that have a direct impact on young people. The aim was to spark interest and discussion and guide us in working out our priority actions and activities for the network.

Our speakers introduced the following questions, ideas and issues:

• How can we make youth custodial settings conducive to learning?
• Why we should raise the age of criminal responsibility.
• Repurposing the proposed Cherry Creek youth detention centre as a young adult prison exclusively for young adults who are 18 to 25 years old.
• How can we make youth detention centres (which should be used only as a last resort) truly therapeutic and rehabilitative?
• How can we re-engage children in education?
• How we can end the link between child protection and youth justice?

We asked our guests to vote for their top three issues that they thought were most urgent to act on.

Here’s the results.

Top issues for people working for better outcomes for justice-involved young people:

#1 Raising the age of criminal responsibility so primary school aged children are not caught up in the criminal justice system.

#2 Schools are an important protective factor against young people becoming involved in offending.

#3 Re-thinking the issue of providing ‘education in custody’ into ‘how we can retain these young people in existing education’.

Other issues that strongly resonated included the need for:

• More diversionary schemes and alternatives to youth detention; and
• Families need more support so that child ‘protection’/removal was avoided.

If you’d like more details about the results, you’ll find them at the end of this blog.

We’ll now use this feedback in our plan for action to advocate for changes we – as a group – want to see.

We invite all of you to get involved, however you can and wish to.

You can link to us at https://ypjustice.wordpress.com/link-to-our-network/ and follow us on Twitter @JypNetwork.

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At the JYP launch on 26 June 2018, what are the priority issues for people working for better outcomes for justice-involved young people in Victoria?

* ratings

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Raising the age of criminal responsibility

We need to change the law!! NO BRAINER!!

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………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Schools and inclusion

Schools are a protective factor/prevention please.

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Discrimination.

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Education in Custody

Q: is there evidence or a preference for/an argument for education in custody v. changing custody to retain current /existing educational contexts?

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Keeping YP in education and training as a pathway of hope, belief in self, and positive future.

*****

Education that is linked to understanding and questioning rather than simply vocation as an ultimate goal.

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A good/special teacher can have a lasting impact- it’s about the person and the relationship not just what is taught.

***

Education linked to increased self-efficacy.

**

Education please.

*

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Repurposing Cherry Creek Youth Detention Centre

Diversionary schemes and alternatives to prison.

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No prison for children/prevention please.

*

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Child protection

Families need more support to reduce need for child ‘protection’/removal.

*****

Early interventions for trauma at first contact with justice.

**

Trauma informed & healing for young Aboriginal people – Wayapa Wurrik

*

TESSA Inc .org.au Therapeutic Engagement Support Services

Martial Arts therapeutic and somatic education approach.

*

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Small, local custodial settings

Importance of engaging families

**

Keeping youth in smaller groups, dealing with them individually (8:2), contact with family, schools, jobs, local community.

**

Importance of education that can direct the why of things- not just vocational.

**

Using this for young girls/women (esp. mothers).

**

Keeping it local – importance of place.

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…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Other issues you wanted to let us know about……

Health

Strong need to improve health outcomes of justice involved YP. Linked to lower recidivism rates.

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We know more than we are implementing in the prevention space.

The NEST/ ARACY – programs to implement.

Communities that Care Australia (CTC)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

 

Did you get a chance to get to the Jesuit Social Services’ (JSS) #WorthASecondChance panel event ‘Our young people, crime and healing: fixing youth justice in Victoria’, on Monday?

No worries! The link above will take you to the video and you can watch the inspiring presenters speak about their vision for the future of youth justice in Victoria.

The panel included Julie Edwards, Prof. Patrick McGorry, Sam Biondo and Craig Holloway. The event also featured the personal and compelling story of Luther.

As part of the campaign, our friends at JSS are calling on you to consider supporting their on-line petition for building the youth justice system that Victoria deserves!

Please go to  www.worthasecondchance.com.au and consider adding your name to the petition to show your support.

 

In September 2017, I presented at the ‘Child-Friendly’ Youth Justice? Conference at Cambridge University in England. If you’re interested in  the topic of  #EffectivePractice in #YouthJustice, here’s the published version of what I was talking about, and a brief summary below…

A social ecological approach to ‘child-friendly’ youth justice

By Diana Johns

This paper draws on a 2015 study of ‘prolific’ offending by young people in Wales (Johns, Williams & Haines 2016). Following this study, using a case study of twelve young people and their YOT workers, we applied a social ecological lens to understand how and why youth justice interventions may have a positive impact in young people’s lives (Johns, Williams & Haines 2017). Through this analysis, we identify the keys to effective ‘child-friendly’ practice.

A child-friendly approach?

The social ecological approach to understanding children’s high-volume or persistent offending is ‘child-friendly’ because it decentres the young person as ‘the problem’, instead seeing the young person in different contexts.

By recognising that a young person’s identity is shaped through their interactions with others, a social ecological perspective tends to invite a strengths-based approach – building up a child’s capacity to trust and be trusted by others, rather than ‘filling in’ their deficits.

At the individual level, this means getting to know a young person to understand their strengths, interests, skills, hopes and abilities. It also means understanding their developmental stage and level of maturity.

From this social-ecological perspective, the worker’s role is to:

• engage with and strengthen a young person’s supportive relationships, including within their family and peer group
• seek out and advocate for young people’s access to opportunities to develop skills, to pursue pathways and identities away from offending, and to succeed.
• consider the range of familial, social and cultural models available to young people in their area and at the time.

As one young man, ‘Gareth’ (who I interviewed at age 21) described, the Youth Offending Team (YOT) was:

…good at getting you on the right track, and keeping you here, making you feel rewarded, and that’s all you need to do really isn’t it?

 

Here’s the link to the published compendium of papers from the conference (my piece is on pages 24-28):

http://thenayj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NAYJ-Child-friendly-youth-justice-May-18.pdf