As in previous years, The Transition to Adulthood Alliance will be at all three party conferences. This year the focus is on the importance of employment for young people as a route out of the criminal justice process.

These events are in partnership with the Guardian newspaper, Business in the Community and Working Links.

T2A’s events are open to all, but each takes place inside the relevant party conference secure zone and therefore you will require a conference pass.

Title: “Whose responsibility is it to help disadvantaged groups find work? Would you employ a young offender?”

Liberal Democrats (Glasgow)

Tuesday 17th September, 8am-9am

Boisdale 1 in the SECC

Labour (Brighton)

Tuesday 24th September, 5.30pm-6.45pm
Consort Room, Grand Hotel

Conservatives (Manchester)

Tuesday 1st October, 5.30pm-6.45pm
Marquee, Manchester Central

A new study into the practical application of the recently revised Crown Prosecution Service Code, which includes maturity as part of the ‘public interest test,’ recommends that training should be made available to Crown Prosecutors, the Police and defence lawyers

Prosecuting Young Adults: The potential for taking account of maturity at the charge and prosecution stage of the criminal justice system, a report the Criminal Justice Alliance for the T2A Alliance, looked at implementation of the new provisions to take the maturity of an individual into account. It found significant levels of expertise within the CPS in working with questions around the concept of maturity, though with scope to strengthen the consistency and accuracy of its application.

Recommendations of the report include the development of inter-agency protocols for gathering and sharing information; strengthening and extending the use of Conditional Caution for young adults and exploring the potential for problem-solving approaches in Courts, where maturity has been identified at the prosecution stage.

You can read the report in full here, and learn more about the Criminal Justice Alliance here.

The Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance and the University of Birmingham (Institute of Applied Social Studies) have today published a new guide for probation practitioners to help them take account of maturity when completing an assessment of needs and risks for young adult offenders aged 18-24.

Earlier this year, the practice guide was trialled with the two largest probation areas; London Probation Trust and Staffordshire and West Midlands Probation Trust. It was found that, by using the guide, probation staff could strengthen the quality and effectiveness of Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) and proposals to sentencers. As well as explaining what maturity means in a criminal justice context, the guide poses a series of questions that will help practitioners to make a sound judgement about a young adult’s level of maturity.

Since 2011, adult sentencing guidelines published by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales have stated that consideration should be given to ‘lack of maturity’ as a potential mitigating factor in sentencing decisions for adults. Furthermore, in 2013 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) issued a new Code of Conduct which for first time included maturity as a factor for consideration of culpability as part of its public interest test.

These changes to policy and practice have significant implications for agencies working with young adult offenders throughout the criminal justice process, including the police, the CPS, the probation service, sentencers and practitioners delivering services.

In July, the Probation Chiefs Association (PCA) held a round-table on young adults in the criminal justice system at which the guide was welcomed by practitioners and policy-makers.

David Chantler, Chief Executive Officer of West Mercia Probation Trust said the guide would help tackle a long-standing challenge for probation:

“We have talked about taking  maturity into account for a long time, but I confess I have always been stumped about how you would actually do it. I think this maturity Guide leads us into this in a way that avoids stigmatisation and labelling, and integrates with existing process – it is a very mature response to a wicked issue”.

Andrew Hillas, the Probation Chiefs Association lead on young adults and Assistant Chief Officer at London Probation Trust, welcomed the guide as a means to support a more effective approach for young adults:

“It is a very positive development that Sentencing Guidelines now acknowledge the importance of taking maturity into account when determining a sentence. However, there is a significant gap in Probation knowledge, training and practice in how to undertake skilled maturity assessments so that they can advise sentencers on maturity issues through Pre-Sentence Reports.

“I was very encouraged to learn that T2A wanted to address this key knowledge gap and that they had commissioned Birmingham University to develop this Practitioner Guide.

“Having participated fully in the piloting of the Guide in London, I have experienced its usefulness at first hand and am very impressed with both the quality and the accessibility of the Guide; I would warmly recommend the Guide to be used by Probation practitioners across the country

to ensure that the maturity of young adult offenders is routinely taken into account in the assessment and sentencing process, thus contributing to the provision of more effective justice for this group.”

Gloucestershire Probation Trust is developing a T2A approach, based on the T2A and Clinks report ‘Going for Gold’.

Gloucestershire Probation Trust (GPT) and Gloucestershire County Council Youth Support Team (YST) have collaborated on the development of a new team to work with young people aged 15 – 21 who have got caught up in the criminal justice system.

The T2A Alliance, convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, has shown nationally that there is scope for improvement in the ways in which young people are helped to face up to the offences they have committed, and access the support they need, in order to move towards a rewarding and pro-social adult life.  The latest research into neurological development confirms that maturation continues well into a person’s 20s.  Research also shows that people mature at varying rates. 

The T2A Alliance campaigns for greater recognition of a young person’s level of maturity when deciding the response to criminal or anti-social behaviour.  T2A stresses that in many cases adult sanctions or disposals are not appropriate for young people, who may need help with accommodation, employment or substance misuse.  T2A recognises the critical need for those who have offended to understand the impact of what they have done, and so places the highest importance on restorative justice being an aspect of every sentence.

The new Gloucestershire team will look to identify best practices from elsewhere, as well as innovating its own approaches.  It combines workers from both the GPT and YST and will draw expertise and skills from both organisations to forge individualised packages of interventions for the young people it will work with.  The team will also include a seconded police officer and will draw on professionals from other agencies as needed.

The team will remain under the joint management of GPT and YST and will benefit from being embedded in both organisations.  It will draw its cohort from both GPT and YST.  Initially this will be boys and young men who are identified as at particular risk of continuing to offend into later adulthood.  The team will also broker the transfer of cases from YST to GPT as a young person approaches their 18^th birthday.  Although Gloucestershire was recently recognised by HM Inspectors as having some good practice in this area, this process can be improved further, through earlier planning and more extensive communication and information transfer.

John Bensted, Chief Executive Officer of Gloucestershire Probation commented: “This is another example of Gloucestershire Probation responding to local priorities, as set out in the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Strategic Plan.  Once again we can call upon our excellent relationships with local partners to deliver exciting innovations that will aid young people become worthy citizens and so protect the people of Gloucestershire.”

Alison Williams, Director of the Youth Support Team added: “We work with young people who face considerable challenges during the process of growing up.  They need support tailored to their needs, but they also need to be held accountable for their actions and to understand the impact of what they do.  This new team has been given the licence to innovate and to think creatively about building upon the strengths of its clients and helping them navigate the difficult years of late adolescence.”

Daniel Hughes, the team manager, concluded: “This is a really exciting opportunity to build on the strengths of the partner organisations and come up with a service that is innovative and will help young people identify their own solutions and find new purpose in their lives.”

For more information, contact [email protected]

The Transition to Adulthood Project in Worcester, delivered by youth charity YSS, received a visit from Rob Flello MP.

The Shadow Minister for Justice and MP for Stoke-on-Trent South heard first hand from young adults on the project and their key workers. Dan, aged 23, said of being of the project, “I am more confident now, and my life has change for the better, and this is thanks to the work with my T2A worker.”

Mr Flello commented:

‘After speaking with young people and their key workers at the YSS project in Worcester, there is a clear message which emerges about the best approach to help young people avoid cycles of offending. It was really encouraging to hear how YSS gives young people the confidence and knowledge to enable them to move forward with their lives and overcome the challenges which they may have faced in the past. The approachable and friendly atmosphere at YSS breaks down the barriers between service users and staff, motivating young people to engage in activities and opportunities which they may have been reluctant to access in the past. The YSS approach clearly works and the benefits which it brings to the young people that it supports cannot be overestimated.’

David Chantler, CEO West Mercia Probation Trust, Phil Kendrick, Head of Commissioning for West Mercia Youth Offending Service with YSS Senior Managers and YSS chair of Trustees Lady Macfarlane had the opportunity to discuss the forthcoming national changes to the probation services with the MP, as well as the locally planned changes the develop T2A on a permanent basis following the Barrow Cadbury Trust funded project.

In light of the newly arranged tendering arrangements of Probation Services, they also discussed the future role of the voluntary sector in criminal justice interventions. Rob Smith, CEO of YSS highlighted his concerns that the pioneering work of T2A in West Mercia, which had evidenced a significant reduction in re-offending (9% compared to a cohort of 48%) was at risk. The role of the voluntary sector in being both engaged and innovative could be severely restricted if the tendering specifications for these new services were not designed accurately.

A new briefing paper on policing young adults, aimed at Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), has been published by the Police Foundation on behalf of the T2A Alliance.

This briefing aims to provide a summary of the key findings and implications from a small study on the policing of young adults. It provides an insight into the key challenges front-line officers face in street encounters with young adults (aged 18-24), referring in particular to stop and search and the night-time economy. It focuses not so much on how front-line officers should best enforce the law in these situations, but on how they should best negotiate such encounters without risking escalation and how this should be embedded in police practice.

The briefing is divided into six sections:

• Background
• Encounters with the police
• Stop and search
• The night-time economy
• Engaging with young adults
• Training and supervision

The paper, based on a longer scoping study published earlier this year, makes a number of recommendations for consideration, including:

• Raising awareness of the changing transition to adulthood and its implications for policing
• Changing how the police interact with young adults, particularly when exercising their powers to stop and search
• Developing more imaginative and effective ways of engaging with young adults
• Expanding police training to incorporate interpersonal skills and aligning officer training more closely with on-the-job supervision for probationers
• Investing in the development of a stronger evidence base

It concludes:

“Since November 2012, the replacement of the old police authorities with newly elected PCCs has fundamentally altered the relationship between the police, the government and the public. Given their mandate to hold the police to account, oversee the policing budget and reflect the wishes of local citizens in their plans, PCCs will now determine whether young adults will form part of the new governance, budgetary and consultative arrangements or become marginal to them. They hold the key to whether resources are invested in the right kind of training, supervision, management and leadership that will produce a step change in how young adults are policed. In reality, there is neither the budget for over-policing nor any excuses for under-protection.”

08/07/2013: Please note that this expressions of interest call for potential Transition to Adulthood Alliance Pathway projects has now closed.

The Barrow Cadbury Trust, which convenes the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) programme, is seeking expressions of interest from voluntary sector organisations for grant funding towards the delivery of services aimed at supporting young adults at distinct points throughout the criminal justice process. These projects are intended to illustrate how a ‘T2A Pathway’ could be delivered.

BACKGROUND

The Transition to Adulthood (T2A) programme was established by Barrow Cadbury Trust in 2008 to develop evidence for and promote effective approaches for young adults throughout the criminal justice process (see www.t2a.org.uk). This work is supported by a coalition of 12 of the leading criminal justice, health and youth organisations, convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which together form the the T2A Alliance.

Between 2009 and 2013, the Trust commissioned and grant-funded a number of demonstration projects, each delivering services to young adults at different points in the criminal justice process. Three of these, known as the ‘T2A pilots’, were subject to a formative, summative and economic evaluation (see T2A pilots). The evidence drawn from these projects, and around 30 other policy and research projects undertaken as part of the T2A programme, has had a substantial impact on policy and practice. We now wish to repeat this pilot project approach for different points in the criminal justice process.

THE T2A PATHWAY

In 2012, a framework to illustrate the T2A approach, the ‘T2A Pathway’ , was created. The T2A Pathway sets out ten stages in the criminal justice process at which effective interventions can be made to support young adults involved in crime, including point of arrest, prosecution, sentencing, probation and prison.

Now, the Barrow Cadbury Trust intends to select and fund a network of projects operating at stages of the T2A Pathway to demonstrate how services can be developed locally and to illustrate how, in principle, a ‘whole pathway approach’ could be commissioned in a given locality.

The Barrow Cadbury Trust anticipates grant-funding 6 projects, each running for up to three years. Each project is likely to be quite different, and operating at different points of the T2A Pathway.

The T2A Pathway projects will be subject to a formative and summative evaluation, which will begin before the Pathway projects go live and run until after they end. The evaluators will also assist with establishing base lines at each project site, and provide practical assistance to the projects to ensure that data are collected correctly and consistently. It is not intended that the evaluation will be a comparison between the projects, rather an assessment of each project’s impact at its particular stage in the process and an exploration of commonalities.

It is intended that the T2A Pathway will make a significant impact on policy-makers at a local and national level, and will provide a strong evidence base for the ongoing work of the T2A Alliance in the years ahead.

APPLICANT AND PROJECT CRITERIA

1. The lead applicants for each project must be a voluntary sector organisation;
2. Applicants must have robust financial and governance arrangements, and a steady track-record of raising funds;
3. Up to £50,000 funding is available from Barrow Cadbury Trust per project per year, for up to three years, with the expectation that they will be match-funded to create a higher overall budget;
4. Applicants must be willing to take part in data collection to support the formative and summative evaluation, and be able to demonstrate commitment to evidencing impact;
5. Applicants must be able to demonstrate a track-record for delivering similar interventions and have evidence of impact;
6. The projects must be able to start in January 2014, with a lead-in phase beginning in November 2013;
7. The projects must operate in at least one of the stages of the T2A Pathway; it is probable that projects will not cover more than two;
8. All projects must work with young adults, which are defined in this project as aged 18-24 years. However, the T2A approach advocates flexibility in service delivery based on developmental maturity rather than chronological age, and so we are willing to consider projects that start the intervention with young people aged 16+;
9. Each project must be delivered in partnership with at least one statutory agency;
10. The project must only deliver the intervention on a voluntary basis (i.e. the young adults are able to freely opt into it), and not as part of a statutory order or licence arrangement;
11. The projects must build on an existing project that is already up and running and demonstrating promising results. Barrow Cadbury Trust will welcome projects that are either already targeted at young adults, or which are currently working with other age groups and could be adapted to deliver a specific young adult dimension.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Projects will be selected using the following process:

• The first stage is the expression of interest, which must be received by Friday 5^th July;
• All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their expression of interest by Friday 19^th July;
• At this point, a shortlist of applicants will be invited to submit a full application, which must be received by Friday 6^thSeptember;
• Selected projects will be notified by Friday 25^th October;
• Selected projects will undertake a set-up phase (including engagement with the T2A Pathway evaluators) during November and December;
• Projects will go live in January 2014.

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FORM

Once you have read the information above, and the supporting paper (attached below), please click here if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

If you have any further questions, please contact Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Criminal Justice Programme Manager, Max Rutherford.

For support with submitting applications, please contact Asma Aroui, Programme Administrator, or call 02076329068.

A new report by the Restorative Justice Council, launched today, recommends that all victims of crime should be offered restorative justice, regardless of the age of the offender. Currently, restorative justice is less available to the victims of crimes committed by young adults (aged 18-25) than victims of crimes committed by young people aged 17, despite its proven benefits to victims and in helping people turn away from a life of crime.
 
The report, Restorative Justice for Young Adults: Factoring in Maturity and Facilitating Desistance, which was produced on behalf of the Barrow Cadbury Trust and the Transition to Adulthood Alliance, found that lack of maturity among young adults can impact upon the practice of restorative justice, where there is an increased tendency for young adults to have chaotic lifestyles, dependence on family members, low levels of emotional literacy, difficulties in accepting responsibility and a lack of a sense of agency (or belief that they have the potential to do something positive). The report recommends that restorative practitioners are made aware of these challenges and suggests ways in which each can be handled successfully.
 
Author Ian Marder reviewed the academic literature on desistance in order to suggest six ways in which participation in restorative justice can help young adults put their offending past behind them. This research builds on Ministry of Justice findings that restorative justice reduced the frequency of reoffending among all age groups by 14%.
 
You can read the report in full at the Restorative Justice Council and see also Maturity, young adults and criminal justice: A literature review, a University of Birmingham Study for the Transition to Adulthood Alliance.

The Barrow Cadbury Trust, which convenes and funds the work of the T2A Alliance, would like to invite applications for the delivery of a major research project to evaluate a new initiative due to start later in 2013: The T2A Pathway.

T2A Pathway

In early summer 2013, Barrow Cadbury Trust intends to select and fund a network of projects operating across the T2A Pathway to demonstrate how services can be developed locally and to illustrate how, in principle, a ‘whole pathway approach’ could be commissioned in a given locality.

It is intended that these projects will operate across England and Wales, and will start in late 2013, running for up to three years. These projects will be led by voluntary sector organisations that already have a track record or an existing project to build on, and will be delivered in partnership with statutory agencies. There are likely to be 6 projects.

T2A Pathway Evaluation

An evaluation of the T2A Pathway will be formative and summative in nature, and will begin before the Pathway projects go live and run until after the projects end. The evaluation will assist with establishing base line data at each project site, and provide practical assistance to the projects to ensure that data are collected correctly and consistently. Each Pathway project is likely to be quite different, and operating at different points in the criminal justice process. It is not intended that the evaluation will be a comparison between the projects, rather an assessment of each project’s impact at its particular stage in the process and an exploration of commonalities.

1. The evaluation is subject to a maximum budget of £120,000;
2. The research will begin in July 2013, and complete no later than early 2017;
3. The research will draw data from the T2A Pathway projects;
4. The T2A Pathway projects are time limited to up to three years; and
5. The T2A Pathway projects are likely to be relatively small in scope, meaning that the project is unlikely to draw data from a large numbers of service users.

For organisations interested in tendering for the research, a supporting document outlining the detail of the T2A Pathway project is available on request.

Contact and timetable

Applications should be submitted electronically in Word format by 5pm on Monday 20^th May 2013 to Max Rutherford, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at the Barrow Cadbury Trust, on[email protected]

• The tendering process will begin on Tuesday 30^th April 2013.
• All applications for the evaluation must be received by 5pm on Monday 20^th May 2013.
• A shortlist of three applicants will be selected and notified on Friday 24^th May 2013
• These applicants will be interviewed on Wednesday 29^th May 2013
• The chosen applicant will be offered the contract on Friday 31^st May 2013
• The evaluation process will start in July 2013.

N.B. The selected applicant will be asked to present the evaluation research methodology at T2A Alliance members’ meeting on Monday 3^rd June 2013

If you have any questions about the project or the tendering process, please contact Max Rutherford, Criminal Justice Programme Manager at the Barrow Cadbury Trust, at [email protected] or 020 7632 9066. You can find more information about Barrow Cadbury Trust at www.barrowcadbury.org.uk and about T2A at www.t2a.org.uk

Transition to Adulthood Alliance Chair Joyce Moseley OBE spoke at a Youth Justice Board (YJB) and National Offender Management Service (NOMS) event marking the launch of new protocols for youth to adult transition processes in the community.
 
Speaking at the event, Joyce noted the fact that while young adults are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice process, with the right targeted support they are also most likely desist from crime. You can watch film of Joyce speaking below:
 

 
You can read more about the new Youth to Adult Transitions Framework here.