Best practice
The latest (14 February 2025) in the probation inspectorate’s Academic Insight series focuses on the key components of high-quality child-centred casework in youth justice. Written by Andrew Day and Catia Malvaso, who have been working in partnership with Youth Justice in South Australia to develop case management processes and practices that are more trauma-informed and child-centred.
Influenced by this work and the wider research literature, they make the case that youth justice practitioners will be the most effective agents of positive change when they successfully engage children and young people with a focus upon:
- listening carefully;
- helping justice-involved children and young people to feel safe; and
- working in ways that promote positive and rewarding experiences.
The importance of engagement
The authors acknowledge that there is now a clear consensus about the importance of an individualised child-centred approach in both youth justice and general children’s services but argue, convincingly, that it is not always obvious – at least in terms of everyday practice – what a child-centred approach actually involves.
Therapeutic alliance
The authors argue that the concept of the therapeutic alliance is a helpful way to think about engagement, particularly in criminal justice settings where the goals of the relationship are typically imposed by the court and may or may not be congruent with those of the child or young person. The alliance comprises three inter-related elements:
- goals – that speak to the very purpose of the relationship
- tasks – which are the specific activities that need to be undertaken to achieve the goals
- bond – the development of an emotionally trusting relationship.
They assert that before the goals of any service contact can be agreed (or negotiated) in order for the actual tasks that make up the case plan to be identified, it is important firstly to develop the bond. In fact. They believe that engagement of this type is a necessary (and, at times, even sufficient) condition for meaningful case plans to be developed that have the potential to have long lasting impact.
Strengthening practice
The authors very helpfully provide a table illustrating some of the ways that the core tasks of engagement can be put into practice. These include providing ongoing training for youth justice practitioners in basic counselling skills and psychoeducation to improve both child and practitioner understanding of what a traumatic experience is, how experiencing trauma affects them, and how trauma-related symptoms are perpetuated long after the event has occurred. There is also a strong emphasis on training and supporting practitioners to be able to work in a strengths-based approach and to include family members and significant others (friends, teachers etc.) to support case planning and interventions within children’s broader networks and identify opportunities to broker access and entry into other supportive services that offer positive experiences.
Other issues covered in the briefing include:
- Acknowledging the inevitability that practitioners will be better at engaging with some young people than others.
- Working with young people “who simply do not trust us or what we do”
- Negotiating the administrative burden of modern youth justice practice.
Conclusion
This is a particularly thought-provoking and constructive Academic Insight and Day & Malvaso finish with some very practical questions that can be asked of every youth
justice worker to help to ensure that their practice is both individualised and child centred:
- What emotions are you hoping that this child or young person will experience during
their interaction with you and other members of the youth justice agency? - How do you plan to inspire optimism, hope, self-efficacy in this person?
- How do you want to help this child or young person to feel more included with regard to
both their order/supervision and to society at large?
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
