Beyond Youth Custody publishes a practitioner’s guide on participatory approaches for young people in resettlement

25 April 2014 | Tagged with the theme: Participatory approaches

The Beyond Youth Custody Programme launches its latest piece of work today on participatory approaches for young people in resettlement. Participatory approaches involve young people in determining the services that are delivered to them. Participatory approaches enable young people to express their views, share decision-making and influence the delivery of services to ensure that provision reflects their interests and needs. Participatory practice is particularly important in all work with custody leavers because meaningful engagement in the resettlement process enables individual outcomes to improve. However, the development of participation for young offenders poses specific challenges and is partly dependent upon each organisation’s ability and willingness to share decision-making with young people.

This briefing reports on research undertaken by Beyond Youth Custody on developing participatory approaches in resettlement services and considers the implications for work with young people leaving custody.

Beyond Youth Custody Programme Manager Pippa Goodfellow said:

“This is the second in a series of publications that we will produce, taking the lessons from our research and applying this to practical guidance for professionals working with young people through their journey from custody to community. We hope that you will find the tips and considerations for practice useful for any work with young people in a resettlement context. The next practitioner’s guides will focus on trauma and young offenders, and trauma informed resettlement, which will be published shortly.

“The next piece of work that the programme will be looking into is the resettlement of young women and girls. We are looking for projects and practitioners to help with this piece of important research. Please contact me if you have an interest in this topic area and would like to find out more about how you can get involved.”

Download the report here.

To contact Pippa Goodfellow and to request hard copies, please email beyondyouthcustody@nacro.org.uk.