Anton Shelupanov of the Centre for Justice Innovation talks to Nat de Friend, the Head of Effective Practice at the Youth Justice Board. The Youth Justice Board was established in England and Wales in 1998 with a national mandate to oversee the youth justice system. At the time of the interview, the Youth Justice Board was expected to be abolished by the new government, but that decision was reversed at the last minute. In the interview, de Friend talks about how a national organization like the Youth Justice Board has approached the challenge of encouraging innovation at the local level.
What challenges is the youth justice system in England and Wales facing at the moment?
It’s a very complicated environment that we’re operating in at the moment. Some of the challenges are also opportunities. As an organization we’re in a very uncertain position because the government has outlined its intention to abolish the Youth Justice Board. However, in doing so it has said it wants to retain the key functions. That provides a major area of challenge and opportunity.
How do you communicate effective practice to the field?
The youth justice system is nationally led but locally delivered. The way that we would approach the identification and dissemination of best practice is much more responsive to local stuff that bubbles up from the field. I think if you were going to ask practitioners if the YJB helps promote effective practice, the response would be quite negative. They would say that they don’t get enough information. They may see this as a little bit opaque because we haven’t been able to communicate what we’re trying to do in any concrete fashion.
One of the classic challenges that practitioners face is – I’ve got a kid in front of me with a certain configuration of needs and risks, has committed a certain offence, is from a certain background, is a certain age, has a certain range of learning difficulties – what is out there for me to deal with that particular person?
How do you keep in touch with practitioners working in the field?
We’re in constant contact with practitioners. We have a reference group of practitioners and we draw on their expertise in terms of shaping how we do things and what we produce for them. They are nervously awaiting a number of major changes. They are all dealing with significant cuts in resources. They’re all waiting to see what the impact of payment by results means for them.
What impact have the riots had on the youth justice system?
There’s no doubt that Youth Offending Teams have been impacted by the disturbances and by some of the rhetoric that has accompanied that. It’s probably quite frustrating for many youth justice practitioners. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a sense that, for reasons not entirely in control of YOTs, things are not going quite as well as they were a couple of months back.
How do you encourage local practitioners to be innovative?
Taking initiative is absolutely what you’re encouraged to do as a practitioner. Going back to my probation training, I was very heavily encouraged to become an expert in what was available in my locality. You needed to know who the right people were. It’s certainly about having the initiative to go out and seek what is available locally.
I can give you an example from a colleague in Hereford and Worchester who was applying very entrepreneurial skills in how to manage local services. This individual was responsible for the reparation service in his YOT. Off his own back, he identified an opportunity. The police had a whole load of stolen bikes which people hadn’t claimed and were in various states of disrepair. One of the schemes that he set up was that young offenders could come and learn about bikes and how to mend bikes. He set up a partnership with a local bike shop which provided people who would train these kids up. The bikes were then sold on by the shop. The kids gained a skill. It also had an impact on local targets in relation to reducing wastage and increasing the number of people using bikes. It was a really creative way of matching and marrying different local priorities.
What is one no-cost change you would make in youth justice?
A no-cost change would be legislative changes to simplify the sentencing structure. One of the anomalies we’ve got is that there’s still some confusion around the purpose and use of referral orders. There are some opportunities to clarify things. With extra funding, I would want to see the system invest in improving the assessment framework. I think that if you get assessment right, a whole load of other things flow from that. It’s certainly a multi-million pound investment that’s required. That’s a major area that is ripe for change.
How successful do you think the Youth Justice Board has been?
It depends on who is defining success. At the national level, when we talk about success we’re thinking about the big-ticket outcomes and stuff that can be applied and replicated in a number of areas. The national level can be very blunt because you can see an example of reoffending as an example of a failed programme but as you go down to the local level you may see all sorts of changes in an individual young person’s behavior or engagement. Time and time again, the literature appears to tell us that irrespective of the intervention, the nature of the relationship between the professional and the client is absolutely critical.
Scaling is an area where the YJB has been criticized. We currently don’t have the right systems in place. That is exactly something that we’re looking to improve on. We have initiated bits of work which have started off as pilots and have then been rolled out nationally such as the Scaled Approach. We tested four different approaches to service provision with four YOTs. We took the lessons from those and then rolled out a national project to ensure that it was embedded in every YOT.
How do you manage expectations about what the youth justice system can deliver?
As a practitioner we talk about YOTs being responsive to communities, providing a service to victims and providing a service to courts. Those were the key stakeholders who were in the back of my mind. From the national perspective, management of stakeholders is a much more explicit part of my work, and managing expectations is a major part of that. Being upfront with people that there are major complexities with delivery is crucial.