Abstract
‘Child First’ has now officially been embedded within youth justice policy in England and Wales, but how does this impact the delivery of youth justice services on the ground? This chapter identifies the barriers to, challenges with and enablers of implementing Child First policy into practice, looking at the day-to-day realities for youth justice practitioners, which ultimately affect the experiences of the children they reach. Youth justice is delivered by multi-agency Youth Offending Teams (YOT), comprising a range of statutory and non-statutory agencies, but all used to working within the narrow framework of risk-led practice since their inception, which sees children as risky rather than children at risk. After over twenty years of risk-driven practice, changing to a more child-friendly, strengths-based way of working—helping children develop pro-socially, rather than focusing on previous offending behaviour, is challenging. A risk-focus is still evident, requiring more than just re-branding to overturn. Assessment procedures, whilst placing more weight on positive factors, still frequently utilise risk parlance, underlined by increasing professionalisation in the sector through a qualification structure which hard-schooled a generation of workers in the risk approach. Managers used to being held to account for their gate-keeping of risk above all else find it challenging to move away from this mindset towards a more positive youth justice model, seeing this as a risky step, leaving practitioners unclear as to their expectations, and how these fit with the new Youth Justice Board edicts. Add into this mix the challenges of adjusting to a COVID-19 world, there is much scope for confusion and retrenchment to previous understandings. However, this new dawn of youth justice also offers opportunities for the sector to truly change its focus towards positively changing young people’s lives by leaving behind outdated models and turning towards a more positive youth justice.
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Notes
- 1.
Initially, the YJB monitored the operation of Secure Training Centres (generally privately-run custody for girls and boys from 12 to 17) and Young Offender Institutions (run by the prison service for older boys—and girls initially—aged 15 to 18) and for the placement of children in the most appropriate custodial institution (including commissioning beds in local authority-run Secure Children’s Homes for younger and more vulnerable children). This changed following criticism that youth custody oversight was confused between the YJB, Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service (‘there is no definitive point of either leadership or accountability at system level’, Youth Custody Improvement Board, 2017: 3), in response to which the Youth Custody Service was established in September 2017.
- 2.
This is a resurgence because pre-CDA youth justice was much more focused on diversion as a response to low-level offending by children, in line with international guidance (cf. The ‘Beijing Rules’ Principle 11, UN, 1985).
- 3.
The YJB set up an effective practice ‘Hub’ as a forum for YOTs (and other agencies) to share good practice, which has been particularly well-used during the COVID-19 pandemic for the sharing of creative practice. For this example, see: https://yjresourcehub.uk/working-with-children-and-families/item/136-breach-re-engagement-materials-darlington-youth-offending-service.html.
- 4.
- 5.
A paradigm is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a ‘world view’ and is therefore wider/deeper than a model/set of guidelines; a Child First paradigm (world view) therefore affects every aspect of the way justice is done with children (representing a ‘paradigm shift’ from the RFPP; Case, 2021: 8).
- 6.
Hwb Doeth is collaborative organisation drawing together universities, YOTs and strategic policymakers (e.g. Welsh Government and YJB Cymru) in Wales regarding youth justice policy, practice and development, organised through the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice (cf. https://wccsj.ac.uk/).
- 7.
Case management guidance is currently being rewritten, so hopefully it will reflect the YJB’s own ‘tenets’ of Child First justice.
- 8.
A Community Resolution is described as ‘an informal non-statutory disposal used for dealing with less serious crime and anti-social behaviour where the offender accepts responsibility’ (Sentencing Council, 2021), likely to be delivered by the police officer seconded to the YOT.
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Hampson, K. (2023). Cementing ‘Child First’ in Practice. In: Case, S., Hazel, N. (eds) Child First. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19272-2_11
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