Giving a voice to justice-involved children

Children in the criminal justice system are often vulnerable and voiceless. Entering the justice system at a young age can damage the way children are viewed by society, as well as their opportunities for the future. Typically, children have no say in the institutional decisions that will have a huge impact on the rest of their lives.

From April 2019 to March 2020, 19,000 kids in England and Wales were cautioned or sentenced and 11,000 entered the criminal justice system for the first time.

The work of Dr Hannah Smithson — Director of the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS) — supports these children’s rights.

Over the past eight years, Professor Smithson and her team developed a body of work around co-creating youth justice practice with children. This work is in a formal partnership with each of the 10 Youth Offending Services across the Greater Manchester region, internationally recognised as the Greater Manchester Youth Justice University Partnership (GMYJUP).

GMYJUP created a new framework for working with children in the justice system called Participatory Youth Practice (PYP). PYP positions children in the criminal justice system as the experts in their own lives. The principles of PYP include:

• let children participate
• acknowledge limited opportunities
• help problem solve
• avoid threats and sanctions

The principles were explored in a number of workshops, such as lyric writing with young people themselves in a rap workshop: “I’ve got something to say when I’m rapping. I want ‘em all to listen to my views, use consideration when considering what to do.” The workshop resulted in a creative rap video.

PYP has positively impacted youth justice practice, national and international youth strategies, and — most importantly — children themselves. As a result of this research, youth justice services now aim to put the child front and centre of their decision making. This research has sparked a conversation about how justice services can renew their practices. The Youth Justice Board of England and Wales — which has oversight of all youth justice decision making in England and Wales — has made PYP part of its best practice hub for participatory ways of working with children.

More than 400 practitioners have received PYP training and this methodology has informed strategy changes for Comic Relief, local authorities throughout the UK, and youth agencies in Australia and Columbia, too.

A national approach

PYP is now a national approach. It will be embedded in youth justice research projects at Manchester Met and beyond.

One such project is Getting out for Good, funded by Comic Relief. This focuses on girls in Oldham who are at risk of criminal and sexual exploitation. It introduces positive support networks to help them break out of — or avoid involvement with — the criminal justice system.

The success of GMYJUP and the PYP framework has been recognised through national plaudits. It won the Times Higher Education 2019 award for knowledge transfer partnership of the year. In 2018 GMYJUP was shortlisted for organisation of the year by the Criminal Justice Alliance Awards, and in 2020 it was also a finalists in the Innovate UK awards for Best of the Best Knowledge Transfer Partnership for societal impact.

It’s a source of pride for Professor Smithson to see children developing confidence through their involvement in PYP research: “Even though they still have a sort of bravado, you get that look where you know a child is really proud of themselves.”

The children work towards AQA-recognised qualifications in the participatory sessions. This means they always leave a research project with proof of new skills to help them have a productive future, such as working in groups or contributing to a debate. It’s about supporting young people to be able to tell those in power what does and doesn’t work.