Youth Justice Effective Intervention – Integrated approaches
Creating a workforce with shared values, practices and language that use effective approaches and interventions across all teams.
Professionals who work with young people, their families and naturally connected networks, to achieve a healing and therapeutic environment for the young people you work with so they can, at their best cease or reframing from offending behaviour
Suffolk Youth Justice Plan 2019-2022 Vision and Mission
The Youth Justice Service in Suffolk contributes to the Suffolk County Councils Children and Young Peoples Services vision that:
‘All children and families in Suffolk have the right to be safe, the best education, physical and emotional health, successful preparation for adulthood and employment. Too many children do not have these opportunities and we are committed to changing that. We must be brave and change the way we work to deliver this.
The Youth Justice Board has adopted a ‘child first offender second’ principle. In line with this principle Suffolk Youth Justice Service will:
- Promote the best interests of each child or young person it works with.
- Help them build on their strengths and capabilities, fulfil their potential and make a positive crime-free contribution to society.
- Collaborate with children, young people and parents and carers in all its work.
- Put the views, needs and safety of actual and potential victims at the centre of everything it does.
The Suffolk Approach
The Suffolk approach is a collaborative, safety and solution building approach that balances risk and safety, worry and hope. Young person and Young People’s Services and Adult and Community Services in Suffolk use a collaborative, relationship-based practice approach that draws on a range of research, techniques and tools.
Theories/Approaches/Frameworks used in Suffolk Youth Justice Service
Desistance
Much of the research in this area has been done with adult offenders, however, evidence is emerging into what helps children and young people move away from offending (HMIP 2016) and indeed many of the same factors that apply to adults are likely to be relevant for young people. The findings of research studies that have asked adult offenders about what helped them to stop committing a crime or “desist” have implications for practice and suggest that:
- Desistance is a process, not a one-off “light bulb moment and there is a need for motivational work to support change which is a dynamic ‘personal journey’ (e.g. 3 steps forward, 7 back).
- A non-judgemental approach is required which considers the use of language, e.g. ‘children and young people, not ‘young offenders’, ‘harmful behaviour towards others, not ‘risky young person’, etc.
- Desistance may be provoked by life events, depending on the meaning of those events for the individual. This might include getting a job or entering a relationship or becoming a parent.
- Desistance may be promoted by someone ‘believing’ in the individual. This underlines the importance of workers sustaining an optimistic and persistent approach. Case managers need to be able to demonstrate in a way that feels genuine to the young person, their belief in that young person’s capacity to make positive changes.
- Although the development of better cognitive (thinking) skills may be a part of the process, desistance probably involves a broader change in how individuals see themselves. This suggests the need for interventions that support positive identities.
- Desistance involves supporting connections to communities, addressing structural inequalities (e.g. access to education,, poverty, racism etc) and promoting a sense of belonging.
- Desistance is a process in which the ability to make choices and control one’s own life is first discovered and then used.
- In terms of gender, one study (Sharpe 2012) found that whilst young men often explained desistance in broadly utilitarian terms (crime no longer ‘worked’ for them), young women more often alluded to the moral dimension of crime and felt a sense of guilt or shame.
To support young people to move away from offending they have told us they need:
- Trusting relationship with at least one worker who believed in their capacity to change
- Meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging to the family
- Personal relationship and/or becoming a parent
- Changing peer and friendship groups
- Interventions that provided problem-solving solutions to use in day-to-day life situations
- Planned and relevant restorative justice interventions.
Signs of Safety
Signs of Safety provides the overarching framework for the Suffolk approach which now includes 6 key interconnected elements which are used in combination:
- Signs of Safety values and behaviours
- An overarching comprehensive assessment framework for a conversation, thinking and analysis
- Ways to work with people and family’s naturally connected networks
- Solution building principles and skills
- Acknowledging, validating and responding to people’s everyday lived experiences
- Theory and research
These models and approaches place strong relationships at their centre as the most effective catalyst for change and the development of safety and wellbeing for the child, young person and families as well as their naturally connected networks, while making the most effective use of solution focusing working and resources.
Trauma-informed Practice
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that significant numbers of children and young people known to youth justice services have experienced complex trauma and therefore require interventions that have their foundations in formulating and developing relationships before more traditional interventions can be introduced. On a more local level, the children and young people coming to the attention of SYOS replicate the national picture. There is also an increasing recognition that children and young people are involved in gangs and gang-related violence in Suffolk because of County Lines (Andell and Pitts 2017).
In 2017 the Youth Justice Board (YJB) published a literature review of trauma-informed interventions and assessments and Beyond Youth Custody published a review of research and practice literature in 2016 which presented key findings concerning trauma in the backgrounds of children and young people who offend. This report also made recommendations for trauma-informed resettlement practice. One model of working with young people who have experienced trauma is the Enhanced Case Management (ECM) approach, which is psychology- led consultation and case formulation method, which builds on the existing asset-plus assessment used within youth justice to consider the young person’s history and development. Intervention is then informed by the Trauma Recovery Model (TRM) which draws on the following:
- Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of Needs
- Cognitive theory of child/adolescent development
- Attachment theory
- Current understanding of neuro-development
- Criminology: Desistance theory, Good Lives and change theories
Restorative Approaches
Suffolk Youth Justice Service (SYJS) follows the definition given by the Restorative Justice Council’s Best Practice Guidance for Restorative Practice (2011) which defines Restorative Justice (RJ) as processes which ‘bring those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into communication, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward.
RJ can take the form of direct contact between the offender(s) and victim(s) or indirect communication involving third parties who assist communication. It can also involve restitution or reparation where this is agreed between the offender and their victim. Unlike the traditional Court system, RJ empowers victims, allows both young offenders and victims to actively participate, and encourages young offenders to take more responsibility for the harm caused.
SYJS adheres to the following principles:
- Restoration – the primary aim of restorative practice is to repair harm.
- Voluntarism – participation in restorative processes is voluntary and based on informed choice.
- Neutrality – restorative processes are fair and unbiased towards either participant.
- Safety – processes and practices ensure the safety of all participants and create a safe space for expression of feelings and views about the harm that has been caused.
- Confidentiality – processes are confidential, subject to the requirements of the law.
- Accessibility – restorative processes are non-discriminatory and available to all those affected by conflict.
Motivational Interviewing (MI)
To promote desistance, the case manager requires the skills and knowledge to actively seek out and nurture motivation. An interviewing style that is based upon motivational techniques and a belief system that sees motivation not as a fixed unchangeable feature of the case or individual, but as an aspect of behaviour that can be modified through the use of the right approach is essential. This includes practitioners expressing empathy. Empathy in this context is not about collusion, but through the use of reflective listening, demonstrating understanding without apportioning judgement or blame. This approach also supports children and young people to move from where they are currently to where they wish to be in the future and involves ‘rolling with resistance’. By actively involving children, young people and their families to find answers and solutions to the difficulties they may be experiencing can help to build confidence and support self-efficacy. It is important that practitioners demonstrate hope and the belief that the child/young person can change their behaviour should they wish to do so.
Harmful Sexual Behaviour
‘Harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) is developmentally inappropriate sexual behaviour which is displayed by children and young people and which may be harmful or abusive (derived from Hackett, 2014). It may also be referred to as sexually harmful behaviour or sexualised behaviour. HSB encompasses a range of behaviour, which can be displayed towards younger children, peers, older children or adults. It is harmful to the children and young people who display it, as well as the people it is directed towards. (NSPCC 2020 online).
Interventions for HSB should be:
- strengths-based – building on the skills and ability the child or young person has
- supportive and relational – creating an environment where young people feel safe to talk
- multi-modal – addressing issues within the whole context of the child/young person’s life as well as working individually with them. This includes working with the systems around the child.
- focused on resilience – with an emphasis on identifying factors that improve a young person’s strengths and enabling them to understand what influences their behaviours
- collaborative – using professional networks to make the best use of different people’s expertise.
(Hackett, Branigan and Holmes, 2019).
Contextual Safeguarding
‘Contextual Safeguarding is an approach to understanding and responding to, young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. It recognises that the different relationships that young people form in their neighbourhoods, schools and online can feature violence and abuse. Parents and carers have little influence over these contexts, and young people’s experiences of extra-familial abuse can undermine parent-child relationships. Therefore, children’s social care practitioners, child protection systems and wider safeguarding partnerships need to engage with individuals and sectors who do have influence over/within extra-familial contexts and recognise that assessment of, and intervention with, these spaces are a critical part of safeguarding practices. Contextual Safeguarding, therefore, expands the objectives of child protection systems in recognition that young people are vulnerable to abuse beyond their front doors’ (Contextual Safeguarding.org.uk).
