Child First? Examining children’s perspectives of their ‘effective’ collaboration in youth justice decision-making

This Child First exiting research project was commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation to gain a greater understanding of what children think about their collaboration in youth justice decision-making processes. Participation and engagement of children in youth justice processes and practice is vital, particularly since the Youth Justice Board’s adoption of Child First justice as its guiding principle and key strategic objective. Child First is an evidence-based framework for working with children incorporating four tenets: see children as children; develop pro-social identity for positive child outcomes; collaboration with children and promoting diversion away from the justice system. The focus for this project is the third tenet, ‘collaboration with children’.

Children’s voices have been traditionally neglected in youth justice policy, practice and research and have mainly been developed and undertaken by adults for adults. Consequently this project sought to re-address this imbalance with it’s child-focus of facilitating children to share their genuine perspectives and experiences of their involvement in decision-making processes. The study aimed to explore children’s collaboration in decisions affecting them at all stages of the Youth Justice System and focused on four interconnected research questions relating to: collaboration understandings, collaboration objectives, collaboration effectiveness and collaboration practise development.

The study utilised an innovative participatory methodology, which prioritised co-constructing the research with justice-involved children to ensure child-centric, Child First, co-creation of all research elements. A Project Reference Group (PRG) (n=22) of justice-experienced children was recruited to collaborate with researchers throughout the life of the project to co-create the project design (including exploring creative methods) implementation processes and interpretation of findings, recruited from one hosting Youth Justice Service (YJS). Additionally, research participant children (n=66) were recruited from six geographically and institutionally diverse research sites (3 x youth justice services, 2 x youth offending institutions and 1 x secure children’s home) to participate in system journey interviews about their experience and perceptions of collaboration and their involvement in decision-making processes within- and between al stages of the Youth Justice System.

Findings include children’s views from the PRG sessions and interviews undertaken with participant children in the research sites. Observations from the PRG sessions highlight how the project methodology was developed throughout the fieldwork to ensure child-friendly, child appropriate ways of communicating with children about the research concepts and questions (including exploring creative methods). Research findings from the participant sample were shared back with the PRG which provided an opportunity for children to discuss and validate emerging themes and sub-themes. Main themes from the participant sample included the importance of asking children about their circumstances, goals and interests, being listened to and their views being taken into account when developing support and interventions plans together with their designated worker. Recognising and addressing inevitable power imbalances between children and adults and building relationships with “caring” professionals in child-friendly environments were also reoccurring themes. Findings reveal that children’s experiences of Child First collaboration practice are mixed, with some parts of the Youth Justice System better than others. For YJSs, collaboration experiences were generally positive; within custody, it varied depending on the establishment and incentive scheme level; whilst interactions and engagement with the police, courts and children’s social care services were mostly negative.