Youth Justice
Implementation of the recommendations of the Carlile Inquiry Report: Progress Report Jan. 2020
Future of The Youth Court Round Table
Youth Justice Developments & News
Youth Court or Crown Court?
Alliance for Youth Court Reform
Alliance Evidence Paper
Parliamentarians Inquiry
Action Plan 2012
Through the support of
Family and Youth Courts closer integration
Organisations concerned with the welfare of children and young people
This page provides links to like-minded organisations, and further resources.
The Nuffield Foundation
Improving social well-being through education, research and innovation
The Nuffield Foundation is a charitable trust established in 1943 by William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors. We want to improve people’s lives, and their ability to participate in society, by understanding the social and economic factors that affect their chances in life. The research we fund aims to improve the design and operation of social policy, particularly in Education, Welfare, and Justice.
The Nuffield Foundation has been supporting the work on youth justice carried out by the Michael Sieff Foundation since January 2016.
Visit the The Nuffield Foundation website for further information.
The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) is a leading charity that for 50 years has been improving the lives of children and young people, especially the most vulnerable.
NCB works with children and for children, to influence government policy, be a strong voice for young people and practitioners, and provide creative solutions on a range of social issues.
Visit the National Children’s Bureau website for further information.
British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAM)
BASPCAN is primarily a membership association for professionals and volunteers working in the field of child protection who can demonstrate active participation or interest in the aims of the Association.
It is the only multi-disciplinary association of its kind in the UK, bringing together personnel from all agencies who work in the field with children in need, and with those who are abused and neglected.
Visit the BASPCAN website for further information.
The Early Intervention Foundation
The Early Intervention Foundation Champions and supports the greater use of early intervention measures to tackle the root causes of social problems amongst children and young people, from 0-18 years old. The Foundation: Advocates a cultural shift from late to early intervention; Assesses what programmes work – determining the best early interventions available and their relative value for money; Advises local commissioners, service providers & potential investors on the best practical, evidence-based measures for supporting children and families.
Visit the Early Intervention Foundation website for further information.
Children’s Commissioner for England
Promoting the views and best interests of children and young people in England
The Commissioner and her team make sure that adults in charge listen to children and young people. They do this in partnership with others, by bringing children and young people into the heart of the decision-making process to increase understanding of their best interests.
Visit the Children’s Commissioner for England website for further information.
Child & Family Training is an organisation working to promote evidence-based assessments and interventions with children and families.
The assessment tools and training courses are designed for professionals in health, children’s social care, education, the police and voluntary organisations who work with children and families.
Visit the Child & Family Training website for further information.
UK-wide child protection charity dedicated solely to reducing the risk of children being sexually abused.
The foundation works with entire families that have been affected by abuse including: adult male and female sexual abusers; young people with inappropriate sexual behaviours; victims of abuse and other family members. Drawing on their expert knowledge about child sexual abuse the foundation offer a broad range of services for professionals and members of the public.
Visit the The Lucy Faithfull Foundation website for further information.
Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) National Unit
FDAC is a problem-solving court approach to improving outcomes for children involved in care proceedings. It offers an alternative – and more successful – way of supporting parents to overcome the substance misuse, mental health and domestic abuse problems that have put their children at risk of serious harm. It offers parents optimism about recovery and change, combined with a realistic understanding of the immense challenge they face.
The FDAC National Unit
The National Unit is a partnership of five organisations working to extend the FDAC service across England and Wales and to change the way children and families experience care proceedings. This website explains the FDAC model and the work of the National Unit. It will keep you up to date with news from existing and new FDAC sites, the emerging lessons from practice and research, and answers to the common questions people ask us.
Visit the The FDAC National Unit website for further information.
Just for Kids Law was founded in 2006 based on the experiences of the founding directors, Shauneen Lambe and Aika Stephenson, who were working as legal aid lawyers and representing children in criminal courts.
In their extensive work with vulnerable children they found an environment that failed to take an all-encompassing view of the needs of the child/young person. The vision driving Just for Kids Law is not just about keeping children out of prison but keeping them out of the youth justice system.
We envisage a society where children are seen for the good in them, not judged by the bad; where all children are able to reach their potential irrelevant of class, race or gender.
Visit the the Just for Kids Law website for further information.
The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) The ICCA was established in May 2016 and is the educational arm of the Council of the Inns of Court. The ICCA strives for ‘Academic and Professional Excellence for the Bar’. Led by the Dean, the ICCA has a team of highly experienced legal academics, educators and instructional designers. It also draws on the expertise of the profession across the Inns, Circuits, Specialist Bar Associations and the Judiciary to design and deliver bespoke training for student barristers and practitioners at all levels of seniority, both nationally, pan-profession and on an international scale.
Visit the ICCA website for further information.
The Youth Justice Legal Centre (YJLC) has been set up by the charity Just for Kids Law to provide much-needed legally accurate information about youth justice law.
YJLC is a website providing information about youth justice law for lawyers, professionals and young people, their families and carers.
Visit the website for further information.
The National Centre for Therapeutic, Residential & Foster Care
Transforming Troubled Lives Together – The National Centre for Therapeutic Residential and Foster Care aims to share knowledge about therapeutic residential and foster care for children and young people, and to support the use of reflective practice and research, in order to improve service quality, and ensure excellent outcomes.
Find out more on the website.
By improving the life chances and social inclusion of traumatised children and young people, we create a long-term benefit to society by reducing their anti-social behaviour and its impact on families, schools and communities.
Visit the website for further information.
Howard League for Penal Reform
The Howard League is a national charity working for less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison. Our current campaigns include:
Transform Prisons – our work to change prisons
Children and Policing – our campaign to reduce the criminalisation of children
Women in the Penal System – our work to help women in trouble with the law
Visit the website for further information.
Prison Reform Trust
The state of our prisons is a fair measure of the state of our society. The Prison Reform Trust works to ensure our prisons are just, humane and effective.
Visit the website for further information.
Centre for Justice Innovation
The Centre for Justice Innovation works to reform the justice system through research, policy and practice development. Our mission is to seek to build a justice system that is and feels fair, that holds people accountable and which address the underlying problems which bring people into contact with it.
Visit the website for further information.
National Association for Youth Justice
The National Association for Youth Justice (NAYJ) is the only membership organisation which exclusively campaigns for the rights of and justice for children and young people in trouble with the law. NAYJ seeks to promote the welfare of children and young people in the Youth Justice system in England by campaigning, lobbying, publishing practice and policy papers and providing training events and conferences.
Visit the website for further information.
Bar Standards Board
The Bar Standards Board regulates barristers and specialised legal services businesses in England and Wales in the public interest.
Visit the website for further information.
The Law Commission
The Law Commission is the statutory independent body created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reform where it is needed. The aim of the Commission is to ensure that the law is: fair, modern, simple, cost effective
Visit the website for further information.
The Criminal Bar Association
The Criminal Bar Association exists to represent the views and interests of the practising members of the Criminal Bar in England and Wales.
Visit the website for further information.
Solicitors’ Regulation Authority
The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulator of solicitors and law firms in England and Wales. We regulate more than 130,000 solicitors in England and Wales. Our purpose is to protect the public by: ensuring that solicitors meet high standards, and by acting when risks are identified.
Visit the website for further information.
Triangle
Triangle provides skilled support for children and young people in different settings including legal proceedings and enables children’s communication when it matters most, for example when children or young people’s evidence is required by the courts, when their views are needed to inform decisions about their lives, and when adults are trying to understand and respond to concerning behaviours.
Triangle is an independent organisation; not part of any government department, charity or voluntary agency.
Visit the website for further information.
Standing Committee for Youth Justice
The Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ) is a membership body campaigning for a better youth justice system. We pool the expertise of our members to work on issues surrounding children in trouble with the law. Our work focuses on policy and legislation affecting all aspects of the youth justice system and young people caught up in it – from policing to resettlement.
We advocate a child-focused youth justice system that promotes the integration of children in trouble with the law into society and tackles the underlying causes of offending. Such a system would serve the best interests of the children themselves and the community at large.
Visit the website for further information.
Supporting Relationships and Families (SRF)
Supporting Relationships and Families (SRF) was founded in 1999 by Dr Elaine Arnold and a group of African-Caribbean women who had experienced broken attachments as children through the loss of parents emigrating to the UK. SRF is a membership organisation, dedicated to raising awareness of the long-lasting traumatic effects on the emotional well-being of young children and families who have experienced broken attachments, separation and loss. These circumstances may include separation through fostering/adoption, residential care, bereavement, family breakdown, boarding school and refugee/asylum status.
We also aim to highlight the need for sensitive counselling and therapeutic services to break the circle of insecure attachments, and the inter-generational nature of attachment patterns in families. We aim to educate through workshops, seminars, conferences, mentoring and consultations. SRF utilizes different psychotherapeutic and counselling approaches. We welcome people from all backgrounds who have suffered loss.
Visit the website for further information.
The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA)
The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) has developed authoritative and very practical guidance for advocates conducting criminal cases involving children and young people. The materials comprise five guides and a film.
Visit: https:www.icca.ac.uk/youth-justice-advocacy to access the freely available materials.
The guides (available here), and the animation combine to simplify this specialist area of practice, ensuring that advocates are better equipped to deal with law, procedure, communication and engagement.
ICCA is internationally recognised for its development of education and training for the Bar and the wider profession. The College’s main functions are to provide leadership, guidance and coordination in relation to the pursuit of excellence in advocacy.
Visit the website for further information.
The Magistrates Association
The Magistrates Association is a national charity governed by its members with a mission to provide a voice for magistrates, support its members in administering the law and to educate people on the role of magistracy in England and Wales.
As the voice of magistrates they work hard to promote the work of their members and the institution of the lay justice system. The Association speak to key decision-makers in Parliament and Government, as well as the media and other organisations in the criminal justice field. The in-house policy team researches key topics relevant to the magistracy as well as monitoring changes in the law to ensure our members are supported.
Visit the website for further information.
Prevention Action
Prevention Action is an online news publication reporting internationally on innovation and effectiveness among programs for improving children’s health and development.
Prevention Action is primarily concerned with efforts to prevent or address impairments to children’s health or development and to promote children’s well-being. The focus of the website extends to physical, behavioral, emotional, social and intellectual development, incorporating attempts to prevent violence, crime and school failure, as well as physical and mental illness. It investigates the potential causes of impairments to children’s health and development, such as poverty, poor housing, genes and gene-environment interactions, and family dysfunction.
Prevention Action is also interested in public policy, professional practice and public behavior that bears on the success of prevention, for example in architecture, environmental design and community action.
Visit the website for further information.
Transform Justice
Transform Justice is a national charity working for a fair, humane, open and effective justice system.
Transform Justice was set up in 2012 by Penelope Gibbs, a former magistrate who had worked (successfully) to reduce child and youth imprisonment in the UK. The charity will help create a better justice system in the UK, a system which is fairer, more open, more humane and more effective.
Transform Justice will enhance the system through promoting change – by generating research and evidence to show how the system works and how it could be improved, and by persuading the public to support those changes and practitioners and politicians to make them.
Visit the website for further information.
The Institute for Criminal Policy Research
The Institute for Criminal Policy Research carries out multidisciplinary research into crime and the criminal justice system. We produce work which is independent, and objective and of the highest technical quality.
Our key audiences are politicians and their advisors, managers and practitioners within the criminal justice system and other professionals working with offenders. Our research approaches incorporate both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Visit the website for further information.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Paul Hamlyn Foundation was established by Paul Hamlyn in 1987 and it is one of the largest independent grant-making foundations in the UK.
Our mission is to help people overcome disadvantage and lack of opportunity, so that they can realise their potential and enjoy fulfilling and creative lives. We have a particular interest in supporting young people and a strong belief in the importance of the arts.
Visit the website for further information.
British Association of Social Workers
British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is the largest professional association for social work in the UK, with offices in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We’re here to promote the best possible social work services for all people who may need them, while also securing the well being of social workers.
Visit the website for further information.
The Department for Education
The Department for Education is responsible for children’s services and education, including higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England. The department is also home to the Government Equalities Office. We work to provide children’s services and education that ensure opportunity is equal for all, no matter what their background or family circumstances.
Visit the website for further information.
The Activity Alliance joins members, partners and disabled people to make active lives possible. Together, we challenge perceptions and change the reality of disability, inclusion and sport. As an Alliance founded in 1998, we benefit from the wealth of its Members’ expertise.
We work closely with many organisations. This includes Sport England, the National Disability Sport Organisations (NDSOs) for specific impairment groups and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of sport. We also work with regional, coaching and education networks, including the County Sports Partnerships, clubs and schools.
Visit the Activity Alliance website for further information.
The Council for Disabled Children
The Council for Disabled Children (CDC) are the umbrella body for the disabled children’s sector bringing together professionals, practitioners and policy-makers.
The CDC’s vision is a society in which disabled children and young people’s rights are respected, their aspirations supported and life chances are assured. We want disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs to have full and happy childhoods, to fulfil their potential, and be active within the community. And we want parents of disabled children to be parents first – living ordinary lives.
Visit the website for further information.
The National Autistic Society
The National Autistic Society are the leading UK charity for autistic people (including those with Asperger syndrome) and their families. The Society provides information, support and pioneering services, and campaign for a better world for autistic people.
Visit the website for further information.
SOS|SEN
SOS|SEN offer a free, friendly, independent and confidential telephone helpline for parents and others looking for information and advice on Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). SOS|SEN concentrate on helping people to find their way through the legal and procedural maze which is so daunting to so many who try to obtain satisfactory provision for a child’s special needs.
Visit the website for further information.
Action-attainment
Action-attainment is about enabling children with speech, language, communication and sensory needs to achieve and have active lives. Led by Samantha Silver, the organisation builds on Sam’s personal and professional experience of supporting children, and their families, to have fun and learn in and out of school.
Action-attainment works directly with families, professionals, schools and with community groups to provide understanding, strategies and opportunities for learning, play and friendships.
Visit the website for further information.
I CAN is the children’s communication charity. The charity specialises in helping children develop the speech, language and communication skills they need to thrive in a 21st-century world. They train practitioners from all over the UK to deliver vital support and interventions to children and young people.
I CAN also supports parents and carers directly by providing an enquiry service and online resources. Through their specialist schools in Surrey and Nottinghamshire, I CAN empowers and educates children with the most complex and acute speech, language and communication needs.
I CAN’s mission is that no child should be left out or left behind because of a difficulty speaking or understanding.
Visit the website for further information.
We provide a home and support for men with a history of addiction to transform their lives. Our programme is abstinence-based and provides structure and a supportive environment where men can address the root causes of their addiction, learning to make informed choices about their lives.
Our Residents invariably report multiple hardships, which often include care, homelessness and prison, becoming marginalised as the result of addiction. The Nehemiah Project has been providing this support for over 20 years in South London, but is open to men from anywhere in the UK – the most important thing is a man’s genuine desire to change.
Visit the website for further information.
Barca-Leeds is a multi-purpose charity in Bramley, Leeds, West Yorkshire. We provide specialist services to help people overcome a broad range of issues. Barca-Leeds supports all members of the local community, from children and young people to adults and families.
Visit the website for further information.
Coram is committed to improving the lives of the UK’s most vulnerable children and young people. We support children and young people from birth to independence, creating a change that lasts a lifetime.
Coram is one of the UK’s first children’s charities, founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram, a philanthropist who wanted to provide care for abandoned children left dying on London’s streets.
Visit the website for further information.
Pause aims to break cycle of repeat removal by intervening at a point when the women have no children in their care and offers them a chance to take a pause from the usual periods of chaos, anger and reaction to care proceedings.
Pause is different in that it does not define the women in relation to any one issue e.g. substance misuse or criminal justice issues, or to others, but instead helps them to focus on themselves with the purpose of supporting them to take control of their lives and to develop new skills and responses. To do this they are required to take the most effective form of reversible contraception during the intervention, thereby creating a space to pause, reflect, learn and aspire.
Pause encourages partner agencies (e.g. criminal justice and drug and alcohol services) to think differently by working with the women from an open and curious perspective and put aside previous assessments and preconceptions.
Visit the website for further information.
Research in Practice supports the children’s sector to build capacity for evidence-informed practice with children and families.
Visit the website for further information.
Kingston & Richmond SEND Family Voices are a volunteer parent-led charity, formed in June 2014, in response to the opportunities offered by the Special Educational Needs (SEND) reforms; these are the changes in law which aim to create equal partnerships between families of children and young people with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) and the professional services.
Visit the website for further information.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services Ltd (ADCS)
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services Ltd (ADCS) is the national leadership association of England for statutory directors of children’s services and their senior management teams.
Our members hold leadership roles in children’s services departments in local authorities in England. They specialise in developing, commissioning and leading the delivery of services to children, young people and their families, including education, health, youth, early years and social care services. Working in partnership with other agencies our members work to achieve tailored and joined-up services for children, whatever their identified needs.
Visit the website for further information.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
For almost 100 years, the Tavistock and Portman clinics have embodied a distinctive way of thinking about and understanding mental distress, mental health and emotional wellbeing. Working with children and families and adults, our approach brings together psychoanalytic, psychodynamic and systemic theory and practice and other approaches and seeks to understand the unconscious as well as conscious aspects of a person’s experience and places the person, their relationships and social context at the centre of our practice.
Our goal is that more people should have the opportunity to benefit from our approach. We seek to spread our thinking and practice through devising and delivering high quality clinical services, the provision of training and education, research, organisational consulting and influencing public debate.
Visit the website for further information.
HM Inspectorate of Probation is the independent inspector of probation and youth offending services across England and Wales. We provide evidence-based intelligence for commissioners and providers, designed to play a key part in facilitating and encouraging improvement in effective service delivery.
Visit the website for further information.
Our purpose is to address the causes and effects of knife crime, and all forms of violence. We provide an up-to-date news facility, a regular magazine, video resources, a research area, and a growing and highly accessible directory of organisations. We will strive to make it the most constructive area for collaboration for anyone seeking or offering help to young people all over Greater London.
We are supported by individuals and groups from the world of youth engagement, training, mentoring, mental health support, business, sports, social mobility organisations; as well as the arts, health, research, education, policing, local and national government, and those who wish to make a difference to the lives of young people. Visit the website for further information.