Putting Journey Problems on the Youth Justice Agenda

This seminar will explore how outdated, polarised responses to convicted children's journey problems can be improved through one policy and one practice recommendation.

With speaker Dr Sarah Brooks-Wilson

Despite sitting at the institutional periphery, journey making is central to effective policy and practice as if a subject is not there, it simply cannot be performed. Convicted children in England and Wales have a compulsory requirement to engage with a multitude of services that resolve problems, punish deeds, manage engagement, assess risks and restore community relations. Yet a mobilities lens problematises celebratory interpretations of holistic treatment, revealing how paradoxically, those least well placed to complete journeys become catapulted around locality settings. Notions of the socially situated and socially produced journey also develop thinking on criminogenic justice agency engagement, with research evidence demonstrating how children are being punished for not completing journeys that they are poorly placed to make, for reasons beyond their control.

This seminar will explore how outdated, polarised responses to convicted children’s journey problems can be improved through one policy and one practice recommendation. Pilot data on a new visual communication tool will be used to locate key practice opportunities for journey conversations to become elevated. Research evidence will then be used to argue for new policy detail through a Minimum Mobility Standard, which no child should fall below when accessing services. Resolving problems associated with highly prescriptive and discretionary responses, the Standard provides a timely opportunity to achieve effective child-centred policy and practice priorities, in the context of current sectoral flux.