11 July 2020
Embedding Restorative Justice for children and young adults
The project will expand the use of restorative justice for young people, particularly young adults, by developing the RJ service offered by youth offending and regional probation teams and by influencing justice policy.
Why Me? advocates for the use of restorative justice approaches with all age groups and across all offence types. However, recently it has focused on working with youth offending teams to develop good practice with children. This project will see Why Me? continuing this work, and using it to develop practice with young adults. Why Me? will campaign for the newly appointed regional probation directors to allocate innovation funds for restorative justice and to co-commission restorative justice services with Local Authorities and Police and Crime Commissioners. Why Me? will warm up the territory so that the probation commissioning framework, which lists restorative justice as one of its 12 themes, is better able to support young adults receiving this service. There will also be a focus on the offer to increase the take up of restorative justice services by young BAME people, currently underrepresented in restorative justice conferences.