Diana Ruthven, Barrow Cadbury Trust Communications Manager, shares an insight into our new website – reflecting on what prompted the update and how it will help practitioners access the guidance and research they need.

Over the nine years I have been in post as communications manager we have had two T2A websites.  It seems the average shelf life of a website is around four to five years in the small charity sector.  So it was timely for us to start looking into at how a new website could benefit the work of the T2A campaign.

The premise of the T2A campaign, and hence the website, is that 18-25 year olds are still maturing and therefore should be treated differently from children and older adults by the criminal justice system.  We wanted the website to present practical ways to do this, as well as providing the evidence to back up that premise.

New Chair

In January 2022, we were delighted to announce Leroy Logan had accepted the role of T2A Chair. Leroy Logan MBE had been a Superintendent in the Met Police and was a founding member of the Black Police Association.  Not resting on his laurels on retirement, he was keen to get involved in a campaign that focussed on young people and would address many of the issues he had witnessed in his career – particularly the challenges young adults face when they transition from the youth to the adult system, and the additional support they need to stop offending.  We want the new website to be a resource for professionals working in the justice system, who, like Leroy, want to better understand and provide services that support the young adults in their care.

Working with Practitioners

The new website is intended to be a hub for all things around maturity and the criminal justice system. New to this website was a section on the areas we’re working on and the partners we’re working with. But we also wanted to reflect the broad church of people working on the campaign.  Many of those groups and individuals will of course be working on other issues as well as the T2A campaign.  Many will be practitioners and working with young adults.  A historically hard to reach group, we hope to provide a ‘one stop shop’ where practitioners can find signposting to resources that will help them to work with young adults. 

Ideally we would like those practitioners to work with us to build up those resources, tell us what works, what the obstacles are, and what’s missing.  Our T2A Embedding Manager, Heather Abbey, who was seconded to us from the Ministry of Justice, is already transforming T2A’s work in this area.

T2A animation

Initially we thought we needed a film to describe the T2A campaign.  However, this proved to be tricky to pull off given the complexity of the arguments and the need to keep it short and sweet. Plumping for a punchy animation instead, we are delighted with the results.  Revealing Reality worked patiently with us to fine tune our key messages into a cohesive one-minute-long animation, which you can find on our home page.

We’re happy to say that the T2A website is now finally launched.  While we’re pleased with the final product, we see it as work in progress and are already planning the changes we’d like to make to improve the content and navigation.  Do let us know what you think about the new website if you can spare five minutes.  And if there is anything you’d like to see on the site do let us know. We hope you like it!

Research and reports

Read our research and practical guidance on effective interventions for young adults at different stages of the criminal justice system.

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