the child first strategy implementation project

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The Child First Strategy Implementation ProjectRealising the guiding principle for youth justice

Professor Stephen Case and Ann Browning Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy

lboro.ac.uk/ssh/child-first-justice

http://lboro.ac.uk/ssh/child-first-justice

THE CHILD FIRST STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION PROJECTREALISING THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE FOR YOUTH JUSTICE

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ContentsExecutive summary 03

1. Introduction: Implementing the Child First guiding 04 principle for youth justice

Operationalising Child First: Challenging risk management 05Evidence of Child First in practice 07Incongruence as a challenge to implementing Child First in practice 08Implementing Child First: Realising the guiding principle in practice 09Child First ‘Strategy Implementation Project’: Collaboration with practitioners 10

2. Methodology and analyses 11

3. Findings: Examining stakeholder feedback 123.1. Understandings: How is Child First understood? 14

Child-centrism: Influencing understandings of Child First 14Professional relationships: Influencing understandings of Child First 17Cognisance: Influencing understandings of Child First 17

3.2. Operation: Implementing Child First in practice 18Child-centrism when operationalising Child First 18Professional relationships when operationalising Child First 20Cognisance as a barrier to the operation of Child First 22

3.3. Support: Supporting and guiding the implementation of Child First in practice 23Cognisance as supporting the operation of Child First 23Professional relationships supporting the operation of Child First 25

4. Discussion: Realising Child First in practice 26Key features of Child First: CHILD-CENTRISM 26 Recommendations 27Key features of Child First: PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS 28 Recommendations 29Key features of Child First: COGNISANCE 30Recommendations 32Summary of recommendations: Feature by target stakeholder/s 33Conclusion: Realising Child First in practice 34

References 37

Appendices 39Appendix I: Participant project information sheet 39Appendix II: Workshop slides 40Appendix III: Technical Appendix – Methodology and analyses 41Appendix IV: Feature, theme and sub-theme definitions 45Appendix V: Frequency tables for the reporting of key features (tables 4 and 5) 48Appendix VI: Summary of the overall findings 50Appendix VII: Understanding Child First – Features, themes and subthemes by group 51Appendix VIII: Operating Child First – Features, themes and subthemes by group 54Appendix IX: Supporting Child First – Features, themes and subthemes by group 57

The researchers would like to acknowledge the support of the Higher Education Innovation Fund, the UKRI and Loughborough University.

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Child First has been identified by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales as the guiding principle and a key strategic objective for youth justice practice.

The Child First guiding principle and its components (see children as children, develop pro-social identity for positive child outcomes, collaboration with children, promote diversion) have an extensive evidence-base in international policy and research, yet remain relatively underdeveloped in practice. Consequently, the Child First ‘Strategy Implementation Project’ was designed to examine implementation of the guiding principle in practice, focusing on stakeholder perspectives of how Child First is understood, issues affecting its implementation (eg enablers, barriers, challenges, opportunities) and the support needs crucial to making Child First a strategic and practical reality.

The Child First ‘Strategy Implementation Project’ was underpinned by a series of workshops with key stakeholders from across the youth justice sector: policymakers, strategic leads, managers and practitioners working in the community, custody, inspectorate, research and strategic fields. Each workshop explored the central questions of how Child First is/should be understood and operationalised (ie realised, made sense of) in practice and what implementation support is required. Stakeholder feedback consistently identified three key features (each with associated themes and sub- themes) as central to the implementation of Child First for all stakeholder groups:

• Child-centrism: Child-friendly and child-focused strategies for working with children focused on engagement, realising rights and entitlements, prioritising needs, positive intervention focus on developmental sensitivity;

• Professional relationships: components and practices of inter- and multi-agency working relationships, particularly philosophical and cultural differences, interagency partnership working, educating others and organisational identity;

• Cognisance: knowledge, understanding and information regarding Child First, underpinned by the themes of knowledge, development of understanding, guidance/information/support and incongruence.

Thematic analyses identified commonalities and differences within- and between-stakeholder groups in their reporting of each feature and the themes across different questions, all of which are explored further. The report concludes with a series of recommendations for the future implementation of the guiding principle in practice – recommendations focused on supporting and enhancing child-centrism, professional relationships and cognisance as vehicles to realising Child First.

Executive summary


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‘The philosophy for youth justice must be to treat all young offenders as children first... differently from adults and in a separate manner which recognises the special status accorded to them because of their youth’

(Haines and Drakeford, 1998: 89)

The ‘Youth Justice Review’ conducted by Charlie Taylor in 2016 made the central recommendation ‘to create a new system in which young people are treated as children first and offenders second’ (Taylor 2016: 48). At the same time, ‘children first’ developments were occurring elsewhere in youth justice policy, strategy and practice guidance relating to:

• Policing – The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) ‘Child Centred Policing’ national strategy document states ‘It is crucial that in all encounters with the police those below the age of 18 should be treated as children first’ (NPCC 2015: 9);

• Courts – The Sentencing Council’s ‘Sentencing Children and Young People’ guidelines and principles established that ‘the approach to sentencing should be individualistic and focused on the child or young person, as opposed to offence focused’ (Sentencing Council 2017: 4).

Following Taylor’s appointment as Chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales1 (YJB), the organisation adopted Child First as their central guiding principle for youth justice and one of the five ‘strategic objectives’ that make up their youth justice strategy – the plan for realising policy and organisational objectives in practice (YJB 2021b: 2). Others identify Child First as one of several possible ‘models and frameworks’2 for practice (HMIP 2021a: 8). Critical commentators argue that Child First is much more than a simple strategic objective or model for youth justice; identifying it is ‘a philosophical stance that is fundamental to the way in which… [all other strategic] objectives are pursued’ (Bateman 2020: 6) and is therefore a philosophy that should guide and shape all youth justice practice. With this in mind, despite the significant evidence-base for Child First in policy and research (Case and Browning 2021), there remain significant challenges to progressing this agenda in practice.

The key messages from the literature are included in a summary table for each individual tenet. The tables present policy and research support sections for each component of each tenet. The table entries comprise of evidence selected on the basis of its specific relevance to each of the four tenets, and to the components thereof.

For ease of access and comprehension, electronic links in the tables provide access to the source documents.

1. Introduction: Implementing the Child First guiding principle for youth justice

1 The Youth Justice Board does not have a direct, formal role in policy development terms. However, it does have two predominantly strategic statutory functions (Crime and Disorder Act 1998, section 41) that help to animate and realise central policy (policy which is led by the Ministry of Justice/MoJ): to advise Government on how the primary aim of the Youth Justice System (ie prevention) ‘might most effectively be pursued’ and ‘to identify, to make known and to promote good practice’. It fulfils the latter function through, for example, developing strategic direction, National Standards and effective practice guidance documents to support youth justice practitioners with their understanding, moderation, mitigation and delivery of policy in practice contexts.2 Indeed, Child First is a direct challenge to the ‘Risk-Need-Responsivity’ model of risk management consistently privileged in guidance and information sharing from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP). However, Child First is compatible (congruent) with other practice models identified by HMIP (2021), including ‘desistance research’ (focused on strengths-building, positive identity development and collaborative relationships), the ‘Good Lives Model’ (strengths-building), ‘Child-friendly justice’ (rights-based) and the ‘social-ecological framework’ (contact-sensitive promotion of positive identity).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/577103/youth-justice-review-final-report.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974575/YJB_Business_Plan_2021-22.pdf

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/about-hmi-probation/about-our-work/our-standards-and-ratings/

https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/report/Child_First_Justice_the_research_evidence-base_Full_report_/14152040

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Table 1: The Child First guiding principle

Tenet Components

1. See children as children Prioritise the best interests of children, recognising their particular needs, capacities, rights and potential. All work is child-focused, developmentally informed, acknowledges structural barriers and meets responsibilities towards children.

2. Develop pro-social identity for positive child outcomes

Promote children’s individual strengths and capacities as a means of developing their pro-social identity for sustainable desistance, leading to safer communities and fewer victims. All work is constructive and future-focused, built on supportive relationships that empower children to fulfil their potential and make positive contributions to society.

3. Collaboration with children Encourage children’s active participation, engagement and wider social inclusion. All work is a meaningful collaboration with children and their carers.

4. Promote diversion Promote a childhood removed from the justice system, using pre-emptive prevention, diversion and minimal intervention. All work minimises criminogenic stigma from contact with the system.

Operationalising Child First: Challenging risk managementThe ‘YJB Strategic Plan 2021-2024’ operationalises (defines, measures, makes sense of, puts into practice) the Child First guiding principle in terms of four inter-related sub-principles or ‘tenets’ (YJB 2021b: 10-11; see table 1). These tenets are an amalgamation of the central features of the Positive Youth Justice (PYJ) model of practice (Haines and Case 2015) and the tenets of the evidence-based Constructive Resettlement approach founded in constructive, co-created, customised, consistent and co-ordinated resettlement practice (Hazel and Bateman 2021; YJB 2018).

The YJB’s Child First definition incorporates PYJ concepts of child-friendly practice, the future-focused promotion of positive behaviours/outcomes, engagement, supportive relationships and diversion from the formal YJS3 – tenets identified, evidenced and developed as explicit challenges and ‘positive’ alternatives to the ‘negative’ elements of the risk management model that has shaped youth justice practice since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (Case 2021). These negative elements include an almost exclusive focus on the prevention of negative behaviours/outcomes, neglect of children’s meaningful participation, prioritisation of adult-centric (created by and focused on adults) practices and a tendency towards interventionism – disproportionate, potentially criminalising levels of intervention (Haines and Case 2015; see also Case and Haines 2009).

3 The YJB definition currently excludes the PYJ tenet of ‘evidence-based partnership’, which challenges the privileging of risk-based explanations and interventions in youth justice responses (Case and Browning 2021).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/802702/YJB_Strategic_Plan_2019_to_2022.pdf


https://yjresourcehub.uk/custody-and-resettlement/item/610-how-to-make-resettlement-constructive-yjb-document.html



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Evidence-based critique of risk managementFormalising Child First represents a significant change in policy and strategy direction for the YJB and for youth justice in England and Wales – a deliberate move away from the (allegedly) anti-child, child-unfriendly risk management model (Case and Haines 2021). It is crucial to stress that the most significant critiques of the risk paradigm and its related youth justice approaches of risk management and risk assessment (eg critiques that underpinned the abolition of the ‘Scaled Approach’ and the development of Child First) are evidence-based – grounded in a comprehensive, longstanding body of original, primary research (using multiple methods) and secondary research (using existing, pre-formed data) that has been highly critical of the effectiveness of the risk paradigm in practice. As such, they should not be diminished or caricatured as mere ‘theoretical debates’ (Baker, for YJB 2014) or ‘fashion4’ (HMIP 2020), as this could be viewed as misleading and somewhat reductionist (over-simplifying a complex area) in evidential terms. Indeed, these arguments run the risk of misrepresenting and undervaluing the extent and nature of the longstanding scholarly (non-empirical) critique of the risk paradigms on theoretical, conceptual, methodological and ethical grounds (cf. Case 2021; Case and Haines 2009). Cogent examples of these critiques include:

• System research: the longitudinal, multi-method ‘Edinburgh Study’ (McAra and McVie 2010) concluded that risk-based youth justice encourages contact with the YJS that is criminogenic (increases crime), as did the survey-based study of the ‘Swansea Bureau’ diversion approach (Haines et al. 2013);

• Practice research: marginalising/excluding children’s voices and de-emphasising welfare needs during risk-based assessment and decision-making has been highlighted in practitioner interviews (eg Drake et al. 2014; Briggs 2013), whilst the criminogenic, anti-child, impractical nature of AssetPlus has been identified in practice observations (Creaney 2020), interviews (Case et al. 2021) and evaluation of assessment training (Hampson 2018);

• Statistical and process analyses: the Scaled Approach pilot evaluation identified inconsistencies in implementation and poor outcomes for children (Sutherland 2009), especially when compared to a Child First approach in a neighbouring YOT area (Haines and Case 2012);

• Secondary analyses: a comprehensive critical review of risk factor research, policy and practice (Case and Haines 2009) produced a series of evidence-based criticisms that underpinned the abolition of the Scaled Approach (Drew, in Case 2021);

• Meta-review of risk assessment studies: a critical review of 39 meta-analyses (combining the results of multiple studies) and systematic reviews (Prins and Reich 2021) concluded that claims regarding the predictive accuracy of risk assessment processes are based on inappropriate statistics and conclusions about evidence that are inconsistent, often overstated and that ‘overreach’ when making (debatable) inferences about how risk prediction can inform explanations (of youth offending) and ‘effective’ interventions.

‘Standards for children in the justice system’ (MoJ/YJB 2019) provide a ‘framework for youth justice practice’ and the ‘minimum expectations for all agencies’ to ensure that positive outcomes for children align with the Child First guiding principle for practice (MoJ/YJB 2019: 4). These revised ‘National Standards’ for practitioners are ‘indicative of a clear distinction between the philosophy now espoused by the YJB [Child First] and that which informed the previous iteration of the standards [risk management]’ (Bateman 2020: 4). The new expectations for practice to be Child First are consolidated in the YJB ‘Case Management Guidance’ for practitioners (to be revised and updated in late 2021) – separate guidance documents outlining how practitioners and managers can work effectively with children at different stages of the YJS: out-of-court, in-court working,

4 In a presentation to the National Association for Youth Justice in 2020, the Head of the HMIP Youth Offending Inspection Programme stated that ‘although the limitations of the risk paradigm have been noted and widely explored by a number of academics – our responsibility is to follow the evidence as it evolves… We should not follow fashion’.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/367782/AssetPlus_Rationale_revised_October_2014_1_0.pdf

https://thenayj.org.uk/cmsAdmin/uploads/explaining-desistance-nayj-feb-2021.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/957697/Standards_for_children_in_youth_justice_services_2019.doc.pdf


https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/case-management-guidance

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bail and remand, using reports, assessment, community interventions, custody and resettlement, and supporting parents (YJB 2019). Through these National Standards and their associated Case Management Guidance, the YJB offers a ‘guide to strategic and operational services’ understanding of what is expected of them, but does not prescribe how services should be designed and delivered’ (MOJ/YJB 2019: 3). At this stage in its development, however, it is evident that Child First is more embedded in policy and strategy rhetoric (persuasive speech and argument) in England and Wales than it is reflected in official structures (eg local youth justice infrastructures) and (especially) practice guidance to YOTs and the Secure Estate (custodial institutions).

Evidence of Child First in practiceThe YJB Business Plan commits to ‘drive system improvement’ and to ‘promote the sector-led practice development and strengthen ways to disseminate what is known about working with children across the youth justice sector and beyond’ (YJB 2021b: 4) – commitments that make conceptual and practical space for the current consultation project. Child First as a demonstrable, evidenced practice approach is best understood as ‘emerging’ or ‘promising’, a status consolidated by the recent publication of ‘Child First: The evidence-base’ (Case and Browning 2021). This document illustrates the ‘evidence which has emerged over the years [that] has challenged our [YJB’s] previous thinking’ (YJB 2021b: 8) and demonstrates the degree to which the Child First guiding principle and its component tenets are grounded in a longstanding evidence-base of policy and practice nationally and internationally. Each section collates, discusses and evaluates the principle of Child First and its tenets in terms of their underpinning theories (eg causes of offending, programme change mechanisms), their basis in inter/national policies/strategies (including children’s rights instruments) and their related empirical research evidence-bases from the field of youth justice and associated areas (eg childhood and youth studies, policing, social work, health). Case studies and operational examples are integrated throughout to demonstrate that Child First is a coherent, principled model (operationalised in different forms locally) and that each individual tenet of Child First has a longstanding evidence-base in academic theory, empirical research, law, policy, strategy, practice guidance and operational examples (Case and Browning 2021).

Perhaps the most important contribution to the real-world practice evidence-base for Child First in England and Wales is the review of local youth justice plans by Smith and Gray (2019), which enabled the identification of a ‘typology’ (classification) of strategic and operational ‘frameworks’ (models) of youth justice in England and Wales (see also HMIP 2020). The most contemporary of these frameworks is identified as ‘Children and Young People First’ (ie Child First), wherein YOTs are closely aligned with more holistic (whole, rounded, broad) understandings of children, viewing their offending behaviour as critically intertwined with contextual factors and their underlying social circumstances (Smith and Gray 2019). Within the ‘Children and Young People First’ framework, there is often a clear commitment to developing interventions to avoid unnecessary prosecutions and criminalisation and to support children at the point of initial contact with the YJS (see tenet four of Child First). Unsurprisingly, the other practice frameworks identified were grounded in the risk management model that has dominated youth justice in England and Wales since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998:

• Targeted intervention – prioritising the identification of aspects of children’s circumstances and ‘criminogenic needs’ (risk factors) linked with offending in order to develop tailored early intervention programmes focusing on these specific areas of concern (Smith and Gray 2019; Kelly and Armitage 2015);

• Offender management – delivering services according to national policy targets, meeting agreed objectives and demonstrating efficient and effective (risk) management of ‘offenders’ by devoting limited resources to the highest priority children (Smith and Gray 2019; HMIP 2020).










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Therefore, evidence of Child First models being implemented in practice is tempered by the identification of a continued adherence to the risk management approach, illustrated by local differences in the practical application of youth justice across England and Wales (Smith and Gray 2019; see also HMIP 2020). These local differences reinforce the complexity of transferring policy aspirations into practice realities and confirm the conclusion that ‘practice does not automatically follow shifts in policy’ (Bateman 2020: 7; see also Hampson 2018). They may also, in part, be reflective of incongruence in the practice guidance and information provided to practitioners by ‘governance’ organisations, notably the MoJ, YJB and HMIP.

Incongruence as a challenge to implementing Child First in practiceDespite explicit Child First developments in practice standards and guidance (eg normalising the use of the term ‘children’ in youth justice language, removing references to ‘risk factors’), there remains a degree of incongruence (eg incompatibility, contradiction, confusion, ambiguity) in information provided to youth justice staff to direct their work. This incongruence is most evident in the simultaneous pursuit of Child First objectives alongside the management of ‘risk’, which continues to shape the practice guidance provided by youth justice governance organisations, particularly the YJB and HMIP:

YJB incongruence: The rationale for the AssetPlus assessment and intervention framework (Baker, for YJB 2014) outlines more holistic, whole child, integrated and collaborative processes for understanding and responding to children who offend than does its precursor, the Scaled Approach. The rationale document states that AssetPlus was developed to explicitly address the extent to which previous mechanisms had reduced capacity for practitioner discretion, children’s meaningful participation and tackling interactions between a wide range of criminogenic (crime-causing) influences in favour of targeting over-simplistic, stand-alone (risk) ‘factors’. It is further asserted that ‘theoretical debates… relating to Asset… [and] perceptions and experiences of practitioners’ (Baker, for YJB 2014: 4) regarding risk management had all influenced the move away from the Scaled Approach by providing ‘new ideas’ (more accurately, strong criticisms).

However, despite these progressive, anti-risk sentiments, the rationale maintains that in order to understand the behaviour of young people (not ‘children’ at that time), ‘assessment will involve identifying risk and protective factors’ and identifying ‘factors affecting desistance’ (Baker, for YJB 2014: 4-5). Accordingly, the ‘Explanations and Conclusions’ section focuses practitioner judgements on risk (impact and likelihood of reoffending), whilst ‘Pathways and Planning’ prioritises the reduction and management of risk (Baker for YJB 2014). Even the new focus on ‘strengths’ is intended to be preventative (framing strengths as ‘protective factors’) as much as it is about promoting positive outcomes5 for children. Ultimately, in a context of a lack of comprehensive training and guidance regarding implementing the (labour intensive) AssetPlus framework/instrument, there has been an inevitable regression to risk-informed practices of old (Hampson 2018; Creaney 2020) that are antithetical (incompatible, directly opposed to, incongruent) with Child First (Case and Browning 2021).

HMIP incongruence: Inspection criteria for YOT practice display equivalent levels of incongruence between promoting progressive Child First tenets and continued adherence to risk management. Criteria for inspecting/evaluating ‘Organisational delivery’ (HMIP 2021b) clearly align with Child First tenets, notably through the ‘Governance and leadership’ and ‘Information and facilities’ focus

5 Whilst the longstanding influence of actuarial logic has noticeably weakened, concerns exist with regard to the extent to which the self-assessment component of AssetPlus is being utilised effectively by YOT staff to facilitate participatory practices (Creaney 2020).








https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/about-hmi-probation/about-our-work/what-we-inspect/

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on YOT management boards facilitating a clear, accessible practice vision and strategy (internally and externally) and promoting evidence-based, multi-agency partnership working in child-friendly delivery environments6. Furthermore, the ‘Partnerships and services’ criteria promote evidenced-based partnership working and children’s access to a range of support services within and outside of the Youth Justice System (YJS) in order to address their needs and diversity, as do the newly-introduced ‘Out-of-court policy and provision’ criteria. However, this same organisational delivery criteria/guidance emphasise the importance of targeting ‘desistance factors’ (grounded in AssetPlus measures), risk profiles, criminogenic needs and risks posed to others (all effectively operationalised as ‘risk factors’), whilst also targeting children’s strengths (as ‘protective factors’) – so reverting to the risk management approach that Child First was designed to challenge.

HMIP ‘Case assessment rules and guidance’ (HMIP 2021c) guide practitioners in the use of assessment to support desistance7 through an incongruent mix of Child First tenets (eg addressing strengths, structural barriers, diversity, developmental maturity, safety and well-being) and risk management concepts (eg attitudes and motivations for offending, personal, family and social ‘context’ (essentially risk factors), children ‘presenting’ risk of harm to others). The privileging of risk management by HMIP (arguably at the expense of Child First practice) is reinforced in the information bulletin ‘Supporting the desistance of children subject to court orders’ (HMIP 2021a), which asserts that desistance goals, even where aligned with Child First tenets (eg promoting strengths, positive identity development, positive outcomes, constructive relationships, collaboration), should be pursued by identifying ‘desistance factors’ (risk and protective factors) through the ‘Risk-Need-Responsivity’ model developed with adult offenders, which focuses practice on three risk ‘principles’8.

Implementing Child First: Realising the guiding principle in practice In the current climate of strong strategic commitment to Child First, the most pressing challenge is implementing (realising) Child First in everyday practice. The relative under-development of Child First in practice and the persistent incongruence within and between practice guidance from governance organisations illuminates a set of important barriers and challenges for Child First – namely that the policy (animated by strategy) into practice relationship is never straightforward, rarely consensual and are seldom consistent within- and between-localities and organisations. Indeed, youth justice is always ‘made’ at the local level9 by local practitioners mediating and moderating national policy and strategy through locally-specific relations, discretion, decisions and adaptations by organisations and professionals (see Goldson and Briggs 2021). Therefore, unless urgent attention is given to how the Child First guiding principle can be operationalised and implemented locally, there is a clear and present danger of a persistent ‘rhetoric-reality’ divide or ‘policy implementation gap’ (Gunn 1978), whereby Child First does not progress beyond policy rhetoric or strategy guidance into observable, measurable practice realities that transform youth justice structures, frameworks, practices and the experiences and outcomes of children in trouble (Bateman 2020; Case and Hampson 2019).

6 Both foci should enable YOTs to address the ‘evidence-based partnership’ tenets of PYJ that is omitted from the YJB definition of Child First.7 HMIP continues to promote desistance as ‘a primary goal for YOTs’ (HMIP 2021a: 4), despite the primary aim being the ‘prevention’ of offending.8 Risk — understanding that individuals differ in their risk of reoffending, so intervention level should match risk level; Need – identifying criminogenic needs (dynamic risk factors) as the most suitable way to target interventions; Responsivity – interventions should be tailored to individual attributes and learning styles (Andrews and Bonta 2010).9 In their review of regional and local youth justice practice, Goldson and Briggs (2021) concluded that the conversion of national youth justice policy into local strategy is driven by leadership, philosophical foundations, perceptions of diversion, perceptions of custody, knowledge-informed approaches and human rights considerations.

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/06/Academic-Insights-Building-restorative-probation-services.pdf


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Child First ‘Strategy Implementation Project’: Collaboration with practitioners

‘Governments are now beginning to take an interest in ways in which… the implementation [of policy] can be strengthened and supported’ in order to ensure the policy intentions are turned into practice results.’

(Hudson et al. 2019: 2)

It is absolutely essential that the implementation of policy and strategy involves close collaboration with practice, because central policy and strategy is shaped locally and tailored to fit local contexts by practitioners (Goldson and Briggs 2021; Sausman et al. 2016). Furthermore, when compared to national policymakers and strategists, frontline practitioners are typically closer to, and have a better understanding of, the realities of implementing policy in the real-world (Hudson et al. 2019; Allcock et al. 2015). Therefore, in order to gain a comprehensive and valid (eg accurate, realistic, faithful) understanding of the challenges of implementing Child First in the real-world of practice, it is crucial to tap into the perceptions and experiences of those whose understandings, ideas, relationships and activities will shape and drive the implementation process, namely frontline practitioners and managers (cf. Hudson et al. 2019)10.

Consultation and collaboration with practitioners can and should inform appropriate revisions to practice frameworks/guidance (eg National Standards, Case Management Guidance, inspection criteria) and support processes put in place by governance groups (eg MoJ, YJB, HMIP, Youth Custody Service/YCS) working with frontline practitioners. Accordingly, the Child First ‘Strategy Implementation Project’ (SIP) was designed as a consultation exercise to examine the perceptions of how the Child First guiding principle should be operationalised and implemented in practice. The consultation focused on: 1. Understandings: considering different stakeholder interpretations of what Child First means

to them – acknowledging the complexity of policy implementation (through strategic direction) and the key roles of stakeholder understandings, behaviour and context-specific shaping of key concepts and central guidance in influencing policy success or failure (cf. Hudson et al. 2019; Sausman et al. 2016);

2. Operation: exploring stakeholder views on how Child First operates/could operate in their specific practice/organisational contexts, thus prioritising policy implementation (guided by strategy) over policy formation (Hill and Hupe 2015) and addressing the importance of local context and practitioner discretion in shaping and guiding implementation (Braithwaite et al. 2018; Lipsky et al. 1980);

3. Enablers and opportunities versus barriers and challenges: identifying and interrogating the practice enablers/opportunities and barriers/challenges to implementation of the Child First guiding principle can facilitate its operation/implementation, address contextual differences (eg local, organisational) and promote an integrated approach to implementation – establishing sufficient common ground to proceed, rather than necessarily establishing a consensus between stakeholder groups (Ansell et al. 2017);

4. Support: gaining a better understanding of stakeholder perceptions of what Child First is, how it operates in practice and the opportunities/challenges presented by its implementation will inform the practice support and guidance offered by governance organisations (eg MoJ, YJB, HMIP, YCS and in the case of a joint inspection, others such as CQC and Ofsted), as well as asking stakeholder groups explicitly about their support needs when implementing Child First in practice (Hudson et al. 2019; Pew Charitable Trust 2017).

10 It is crucial that children have meaningful opportunities to be in positions of power and influence both in the policy realm and during supervision meetings. Children’s unique perspectives are valued far less than the adult-led focus upon risk. Indeed, a focus upon children as ‘risky’ is itself a barrier to the development of a trusting practitioner: child relationship, as is the drive to manage cases effectively in order to satisfy the inspectorate (Creaney 2020).

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The central question for this project can be identified as:

‘How can the Child First guiding principle be operationalised in practice across the Youth Justice System of England and Wales?’.

In order to examine this question, we conducted a consultation exercise with youth justice stakeholders in a range of professional roles, including policymakers, heads of service, operational managers, frontline practitioners and academics/researchers, working at different stages of the youth justice process (eg out-of-court, community, custody, resettlement, inspection)11. Between September and December 2020, this consultation consisted of eleven online workshops (with 3-15 participants in each), a one-to-one interview and an email-mediated interview. During the consultation, the central question was unpacked into five sub-questions for exploration with the different youth justice stakeholder groups:

1. Understandings: What do you understand Child First to mean?

2. Operation: How do you envisage Child First justice operating in practice?

3. Opportunities: Will embedding Child First practice throughout the YJS yield new opportunities for the way you and your colleagues work?

4. Challenges: Do you anticipate any potential challenges/barriers to embedding Child First across the YJS?

5. Support: What form of support/guidance might ease the process of implementing Child First in practice?

Following the workshops and the two interviews, a thematic analysis approach was applied to the stakeholder responses to each question, the findings of which are discussed in the next section of this report.

Full details of the methodology, including the rationale for choice of methodology, the preparation and sampling processes, the analysis and ethical considerations are discussed in greater detail in the Technical Appendix (appendix III).

2. Methodology and analyses

11 Table 3 in the Technical Appendix III details the number of participants from each stakeholder group.


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This section of the report presents the findings from the stakeholder consultation exercise, which consisted of workshops and interviews. As discussed, analysis of stakeholder perspectives on their practical implementation of Child First was broken down in relation into five key questions:

• Understandings: What do you understand Child First to mean?

• Operation: How do you envisage Child First justice operating in practice?

• Enablers and Opportunities: Will embedding Child First practice throughout the YJS yield new enablers and opportunities for the way you and your colleagues work?

• Barriers and Challenges: Do you anticipate any potential barriers/challenges/ to embedding Child First across the YJS?

• Support: What form of support/guidance might help the process of implementing Child First in practice?

In the analyses, we begin with an overview of the consultation exercise in terms of responses of all stakeholder groups (combined) across all questions (combined). This is followed by individual sub-sections analysing each key question and exploring similarities and differences between stakeholder group responses (ie between-group analysis) to each question.

As will become clear, our detailed thematic analysis (see also Technical Appendix III) of the full dataset from the consultation identified three common features that occurred regularly across the groups and which can be unpacked into range of themes and composite sub-themes. (summarised opposite in table 2 and defined fully in appendix IV).

What the whole sample said The consultation data was initially examined in relation to the number of times (frequency) that all stakeholders (ie the ‘whole sample’) made reference to specific features, themes and sub-themes when responding to the key questions. To ‘make reference to’, or to ‘report’ a feature, theme or sub-theme does not necessarily mean that the participants used the exact term or label them as we have in this report, but rather that they discussed and described a range of concepts that reflected the labels that we have subsequently applied.

Three key features, child-centrism, professional relationships and cognisance, were commonly reported in response to each question12. However, generalising the consultation findings across all stakeholder groups and questions tells us little about how the different elements of Child First (reflected in each question) are understood by specific groups (community, custody, inspectorate, research, strategy). Consequently, more sensitive follow-up analysis was needed to examine the data by stakeholder group in response to each of the key questions.

3. Findings: Examining stakeholder feedback

12 See table 4 in appendix V for the frequency of reference to the key features of Child First for the whole sample.

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Table 2: Summary definitions of features and themes

Feature Defining theme Defining sub-theme

Child-centrism (Child-friendly and child-focused strategies for working with children)

Engagement Communicating/collaborating with children Understanding children Valuing the child’s voiceBuilding trusting relationships

Realising rights and entitlements

Realising rights to childhood (eg participatory practice and adult protection)Realising universal access to services

Prioritising need Recognising, responding to and addressing a child’s needs

Positive intervention focus

Avoiding stigmatising processesMinimum intervention Positive approaches enabling desistance

Developmental sensitivity

Recognising the child as a childRespond according to maturity and development

Professional relationships(Components and practices of inter- and multi-agency working relationships)

Philosophical and cultural differences

Differing beliefs, values, cultures and terminology Competing philosophies

Interagency partnership working

Agencies working together to support positive outcomes for children

Educating others Educating colleagues about Child First Defending professional decisions

Organisational identity

Clarity of agency purpose/responsibilities Empowered practitioners, respecting practitioner knowledge, enabling discretion, maintaining organisational integrityProfessional anxieties

Cognisance (Knowledge, understanding and information regarding Child First)

Knowledge Development and sharing of new knowledge

Development of understanding

Promoting system-wide awarenessPromote child-first terminology

Guidance, information, support

Availability of Child First practice guidance and support for staffEnsuring understanding of Child First tenets and the related terms

Incongruence Incompatibility, disagreement, contradiction, conflict between policies and practicesApplication of inappropriate structures, systems, mechanisms, processes, terminology

Throughout this report the overarching features are highlighted by bold font, the themes by bold italics, and the sub-themes in italic font.


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3.1. Understandings: How is Child First understood?Five key findings emerged from analyses of whole sample responses to question one13:

1. Child-centrism was a commonly identified feature of stakeholder understandings of the Child First principle, centred on engagement, effective communication and engaging in relational work to build trust. Child-centrism was also explained as requiring developmental sensitivity – seeing the child as a child first and foremost and realising rights and entitlements through collaboration with children.

2. Realising rights and entitlements, especially realising rights to childhood, was of significant relevance to understandings of Child First, in particular, the child’s right to participation/collaboration and the enablement of the child’s voice.

3. Professional relationships influence understandings of Child First, notably philosophical and cultural differences and language disparities reflecting differing philosophical and organisational views of children who offend. Stakeholders identified the importance of educating others (eg across and beyond the YJS) about Child First practice and maintaining organisational integrity by defending Child First decisions.

4. Cognisance underpins understandings of Child First, namely the development of understanding, with stakeholders reporting a responsibility to promote system-wide Child First awareness and to promote the use of Child First terminology.

5. Incongruence shapes and distorts understandings of Child First, notably through the confusion that exists where deficit/risk-focused practices operate alongside positive and rights-based approaches.

Child-centrism: Influencing understandings of Child FirstAcross all groups, the child-centrism feature was strongly associated with stakeholder understandings of Child First. Engagement, developmental sensitivity and rights and entitlements were the themes of child-centrism most consistently referred to by the community, custody, research and strategy groups to explain their understandings of Child First.

“When I think about Child First, I think about child-centred design, so where policy is being developed specifically about children, it links to hearing from children and understanding their particular needs and designing that into both policy development and implementation… Also, a Child First approach needs to be compliant with children’s rights… in line with the UNCRC and any additional general comments linked to that.”

(Strategy)

The inspectorate group differed from others in the extent to which they prioritised that the positive intervention focus and developmental sensitivity as themes of child-centrism that were central to their understandings of Child First.

Communication was the most frequently referenced engagement sub-theme (community, custody, research, strategy), in particular, promoting child-appropriate language, prioritising the child’s voice in all communications (strategy) and ensuring that the language of all YOT literature is accessible to children (community).

13 See table 5 in appendix V for the frequency of reference to the key features relating to understandings of Child First for each stakeholder group.

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“We’re reviewing all our front-facing literature in order to make that much more child-friendly, and particularly with children with maybe specific speech, language and communication needs, in order to reach children in a more meaningful way.”

(Community: Head of Service)

The importance of engagement through valuing the child’s voice was emphasised, particularly empathetic, active listening to the child to better understand their life, situation and wishes (community, research, strategy), so ensuring that children are heard and listened to by all agencies (within and beyond the YJS).

“Anybody working with the child needs to listen to the child, not just hear what they’re saying but hear the context in which they’re speaking and understand, almost from within the child, what their needs are. Not listen a little bit and then assume that they know how to take the child forward… real empathetic, deep listening and working with the child to understand the child.”

(Research)

All stakeholder groups (especially community, research, strategy) stressed the importance of collaboration with children, with children’s views being respected and responded to, particularly through creative, flexible approaches. For example, one YOT professional reported that their YOT:

“… developed a way of using the AssetPlus ‘pathways and planning’ intervention, so that it’s truly co-designed and written in the child’s voice… the child sets their own targets, and we fill in the gaps about how to help them achieve their targets.”

(Community: YOT Manager)

Relational work to build strong, trusting relationships was a significant sub-theme of engagement. Practitioners described how existing tools and procedures can and should be modified or used flexibly to aid relationship-building (relational work) and hence, engagement and retention.

“Rather than a pathway and planning module on AssetPlus… we do something called ‘me and my plan’, which is almost like a family group conference. We talk to the young people, we talk to the people who’ve been bought into the young people’s lives… yeah, absolutely relationship building.”

(Community: Practitioner)

Relational work was described as resource intensive, requiring a high investment of time to develop trust (community), whilst custody (healthcare) strategists viewed it as beneficial to both children and staff (eg central to an Integrated Care strategy).

“… we’ve heard from staff that they’ve had more time to build relationships with the children, and the benefits that that’s brought about… for integrated care… a formulation-based approach to understanding the child’s story [and] developing those relationships... they’re doing something different, they can see it’s making a difference and they believe in it.”

(Strategy: Custody healthcare)


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Respecting children’s knowledge emerged as an important sub-theme of engagement that was particularly salient for respecting the child’s contribution to the assessment and planning processes. Notably, community stakeholders explained Child First as led ‘to a large extent’ by children (hence collaborative), whilst inspectorate participants acknowledged the importance of children’s perspectives in the context of service user feedback (albeit feedback on inspectorate-centric practice rather than Child First).

“Child First does mean that we as the YJB engage more with children though, because it’s about hearing their voice. So perhaps as part of our oversight function, it becomes more important that we include their voices and understand their voices when we set the agenda for or recommend or create guidance for YOTs. Child First means that we are doing that from a place of engagement with children.”

(Strategy)

Realising rights and entitlements was of significant relevance to understandings of Child First (except for the inspectorate). Realising rights to childhood was described as a right to participation, collaboration and enablement of the child’s voice and participatory practice featured strongly within community and research explanations.

“Our practice model has staff telling us ‘we want to be able to work with children, we want to be able to build relationships’...and the way we’ve done that is by [the participatory] model, relationships, trusting relationships, underpin everything we do.”

(Community: Team Manager)

“Where is the role of children in defining Child First and how are they going to contribute to evaluator frameworks, inspections … if we actually believe in Child First, they are partners in our process, they’re not just the clients of the system.”

(Research)

For the custody and research groups, realisation of rights to childhood, notably, adult responsibilities to protect children, were crucial, but under-emphasised in Child First strategy.

“It’s curious that the Child First strategy doesn’t talk about the right to protection. it does talk about rights and developmental needs, but it’s our responsibility to protect children legally, developmentally, it needs to be writ large.”

(Research)

However, others believed that realisation of rights to childhood was being addressed in their practice:

“Part of my understanding about Child First… is a focus on children’s welfare and wellbeing. For me, Child First is about protecting and promoting the welfare of the child irrespective of what they’ve done.”

(Research)

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Professional relationships: Influencing understandings of Child FirstPhilosophical and cultural differences was identified as a salient theme of Child First practice, encompassing the sub-themes of competing organisational philosophies and language disparities. Indeed, language disparities was the most frequently referenced sub-theme of professional relationships across the whole sample (particularly for community, custody, research and strategy groups), with concerns regarding terminology reflecting differing philosophical perspectives of children who offend.

“By losing ‘Offender Second’, you’re almost losing what ‘Child First, Offender Second’ was all about, reminding people these are children, there are reasons why they offend. They’re not just an offender… Child First, Offender Second tells you they’re not just about risk. Now we’re going the other way and forgetting the risk element, but the two both have an equal part to play.”

(Inspectorate)

However, other groups favoured revisions to the terminology of Child First, one stating:

“I’m pleased that ‘Offender Second’ has been excised. I understand why ‘Children First, Offender Second’ was adopted and I used it myself. In a hostile climate, it conceded that children break the law, but also challenged the master status of ‘offender’ by reasserting the ‘child’ status. Language is important.”

(Research)

Cognisance: Influencing understandings of Child FirstIncongruence was reported as inhibiting understandings of Child First for stakeholders, who emphasised what Child First is not when articulating their understandings (community, inspectorate, strategy). Indeed, this was a pattern remarked upon by a member of the strategy group:

“It’s almost like saying Child First is everything it hasn’t been so far. People talk a lot about the deficit model… focus on risk management… offender management. Elements of AssetPlus are positive and Child First, like the positive desistance elements, but it’s still got a lot of risk management wrapped up in it.”

(Strategy)

This tendency to refer to historic non-child-centric policy/practice examples to illustrate what Child First isn’t indicates that stakeholders experience difficulty articulating Child First, largely because their understandings are limited by the absence of a previous model or guidance upon which to base their explanations. Notably, confusions in understandings occur because deficit- and risk-focused mechanisms and priorities operate alongside those which are positive and rights-based (eg when using AssetPlus).


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14 See table 5 in appendix V for the frequency of reference to the key features relating to operationalising Child First for each stakeholder group

3.2. Operation: Implementing Child First in practice

This section presents the consultation findings in relation to the questions (2-4) about how Child First can be operationalised (given meaning, defined, put into use) in practice, including any perceived enablers of and challenges to its implementation:

• Operation: How do you envisage Child First justice operating in practice?

• Enablers and opportunities: Will embedding Child First practice throughout the YJS yield new enablers and opportunities for the way you and your colleagues work?

• Barriers and challenges: Do you anticipate any potential challenges to embedding Child First across the YJS?

Overall, five common findings emerged from analyses of whole sample responses14

1. Child-centrism was a commonly identified enabler and barrier for operationalising Child First in practice, notably through its key themes of engagement with children, realising rights and entitlements, positive intervention focus and prioritising need.

2. The theme of engagement is most effectively operationalised (according to stakeholders) through effective communication, relational work and positive intervention focus. Realising rights/entitlements requires realising universal access to services across localities and prioritising need necessitated recognising and responding to [real, welfare] need (not criminogenic need) through individualised intervention.

3. Professional relationships significantly influence the operation of Child First in practice through interagency partnership working to enable a whole systems approach, educating others, philosophical and cultural differences and organisational identity – all of which are identified as implementation enablers and barriers that need to be addressed both within and beyond the YJS.

4. Cognisance was identified as an enabler of Child First practice, particularly the importance of development of understanding and promoting system-wide awareness regarding Child First, whilst incongruence (as a significant theme of and influence on cognisance) was frequently reported by stakeholders as a barrier to operationalising Child First in practice.

5. The existence of adult-based stigmatising constructions of children who offend, continued support for risk mechanisms and priorities (at odds with Child First tenets) and use of justice-based language (at odds with Child First tenets), were particularly influential barriers to the realisation of Child First in practice.

Child-centrism when operationalising Child FirstChild-centrism was strongly associated with the operation of Child First across all stakeholder groups, with engagement, realisation of rights and entitlements and prioritising need as the most frequently referenced themes.

Engagement was the most influential theme linked to the feature of child-centrism (community, research, strategy groups). Communication was the most frequently referenced sub-theme with regard to how stakeholders view the operation of Child First (community, research, strategy), with particular emphasis on using communication, facilitating participatory and collaborative practice and enabling children’s participation.

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“We think about participation and the child’s voice, but I just wonder if it gets a bit tokenistic, picking children that are more able to articulate things, so, you know, they [practitioners] need to be really, really creative so that they reach all children, because children will participate in different ways.”

(Strategy)

Communication (emphasising and facilitating participation) and relational work also featured as enablers and opportunities to the operation of Child First (community).

“There are definitely opportunities around participation and enabling young people to be much more central to the design and delivery of services, I’m part of a group which have done quite a lot of work on that already, but I think there’s more that we can do.”


Increased opportunities for engaging with children through relational work was noted as particularly enabling (community).

“One of the things that people in youth justice service… are particularly good at is engaging with young people and if that’s something that we can spread across the wider system, and actually if we can help the wider system to get better at working with adolescents then that can only be a good thing.”


Realising rights and entitlements was of significant relevance to how all stakeholder groups (except custody) envisaged Child First operating well in practice, with participatory practice commonly referenced in stakeholder discussions of how this child-centric theme could be realised. One YOT Team Manager reported that:

“We developed a participatory youth practice framework with Manchester Metropolitan University, and we co-designed principles for working with children in the criminal justice system… that work and that approach to working with children and those eight key principles fundamentally underpin our whole approach and our practice principles.”


Realising universal access to all services, resources and opportunities, and geographical disparities in service provision were identified stakeholder concerns regarding Child First operating in practice.

“We get a lot of out-of-area LACs [looked-after-children] and although they’re dealt with by their home YOT, who write the report, we have to deliver. Quite often we’ll get a young person from a London borough [but] we haven’t got the resources that were agreed in London. We’ve got some services that they would have in the cities, we haven’t got them all, and we can’t always commission them either.”


The theme of prioritising need and its sub-themes of recognising need and responding to need, commonly featured in stakeholder explanations of how Child First should operate in practice. Notably, recognising need was reported as important by all groups (except custody), with frequent references to the addressing children’s disadvantage (community, inspectorate, research), vulnerability (community, inspectorate, strategy) and experiences of victimisation and trauma (community, strategy).


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“We have a Multi-Agency Criminal Exploitation meeting… police-led discussions [with children]… we’ve recognised that exploitation is a key theme. We often have disagreements about whether a child is exploited or a criminal, because they have to be one or the other. I’m like ‘no, they can be both’.”


Responding to need was considered crucial to the operation of Child First in practice across all stakeholder groups, notably the need to offer bespoke, individualised interventions (community, custody, inspectorate, strategy), integrated care (custody, strategy), prioritising need over deeds (community, research, strategy) and avoiding ‘psychologising’ social problems (Research).

“In practice it is about moving on to working with the individual needs of that child, it’s not having a one-size-fits-all system for children. It really is looking at this child as an individual, listening to their voice, understanding their needs, and then developing a plan that is going to meet their needs.”

(Strategy)

Responding to children who break the law using a positive intervention focus was reported as a progressive opportunity by all stakeholder groups.

“Identifying strengths within that young person and their future self, and then seeing how we can support them on their journey to get to that future self… it’s very much a future focus, as opposed to how we’ve probably worked in the past, being focused on their past behaviour. That is a cultural shift.”

(Custody/community: Resettlement)

Professional relationships when operationalising Child FirstProfessional relationships were a significant feature of stakeholder perspectives of the effective operation of Child First, with three themes identified as important: philosophical and cultural differences (community, custody, inspectorate, strategy), interagency partnership working (all groups) and educating others (community, custody, research, strategy). Stakeholders envisaged Child First to require educating others, notably educating others across and beyond the YJS, particularly in relation to prioritising need and rights over justice processes (community, research, strategy).

Interagency partnership working was crucial to the operation of Child First, with frequent references to a whole systems approach across all group responses, along with frequent references to services considered essential in courts/police (community); education (research, strategy) and children’s social care (inspectorate, strategy).

“We did a lot of work with accommodation providers, with local authorities, with children’s services, with directors of children’s services… We’ve worked with health professionals around the health agendas in custody and out of custody. We’ve also worked with education, some things have been very basic like education providers in custody not receiving Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP).”

(Custody/Community: Resettlement)

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The need for a whole systems response was seen as particularly important when issues such as child exploitation and immigration control surfaced. For example, interagency partnership working was essential to managing conflict between a Child First YOT and immigration control, as a member of a resettlement team explained:

“We’ve worked around any challenges presented to us. Immigration officers will serve papers to young people [in custody] at 17 ½. The YOT worker may have to support a young person through that. So, we brought immigration in and talk to people, we’ve developed links. That learning is shared… So… it’s all about partnership working [to] really make a difference for the child.”

(Custody/Community: Resettlement)

Maintaining organisational integrity featured as a challenge to the operation of Child First (eg around defensible decision making). For example, partnership agencies may challenge decisions that prioritise the child’s best interests on the basis of risk mechanisms and priorities.

“I’ve just had a recent case where two children, a thirteen-year-old and a sixteen-year-old, very serious offence, were remanded into custody. We wanted to give them bail, with stringent conditions out of the area and children’s social care said: ‘No. We’re not prepared, we think the risk is too high’, and I had to say ‘with all due respect, we’re the ones that assess risk, we’re the ones that advocate to the court’… Anyway, the judge agreed with us and they’re remanded to local authority care.”


Interagency partnership working was also reported to be a challenge to operating Child First across all groups, in particular, relating to its sub-themes of whole systems and managing conflict (except custody). However, the lack of a coordinated whole systems response presented a challenge to Child First in practice (all groups), with particular difficulties reported when working in partnership with children’s social care and accommodation services (community, custody).

“In terms of child protection or getting services around the table… teenagers especially lose out from safeguarding and support…The protocols are there around looked after children, but it’s been a real challenge to get teenagers the support they need as a child in need of housing. [Also] a family might be under child protection… [but] once the younger child moves out of the home, they quite quickly want to close that off… a 16, 17-year-old under the same concerns is maybe treated differently than a younger child.”


Philosophical and cultural differences, particularly competing organisational philosophies, were reported as a significant challenge to operationalising Child First (research, strategy), specifically in relation to how the Child First philosophies of most stakeholder groups differ from those of the inspectorate (ie risk-led).

“We got outstanding throughout our inspection apart from out-of-court, where we got inadequate. It’s not the quality of work, it’s the assessment… they said the assessment didn’t cover risk, and our argument was [that] all of the theory and research around diversion is not to bring them into a criminal system, to absolutely push them out within the community.”

(Community: Team manager)


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Cognisance as a barrier to the operation of Child FirstA lack of cognisance was an identified barrier to Child First practice, specifically development of understanding, which was characterised by educating others, promoting system-wide awareness and promoting the use of Child First terminology. For example, in relation to educating others a member of the strategy group asserted that:

“There’s a general challenge around the perception that children’s offending is about an individual’s decision-making as opposed to often being heavily related to environmental factors… trying to prompt a shift in that thinking, and policy-making in the context of a society that I think perceives childhood offending as individual decision-making and flawed individual decision-making is a challenge.”

(Strategy)

When discussing the development of understanding as a barrier to operation, stakeholders identified the need to promote system-wide Child First awareness to prevent difficulties in partnership working (community, inspectorate, strategy).

“Where we’ve had most struggles with Child First is with partners. So, social care, education, particularly bail and remand decisions, and the biggest struggle we’ve had is where the young person presents the highest risk.”


The strategy and community groups expressed concerns regarding the limited appreciation/understanding of the harm of exposure to deficit-based (ie risk-focused) practice and system involvement for children (see also risk mechanisms and priorities sub-theme), which was viewed as the antithesis of a Child First approach (see also Introduction).

“What’s crucial is getting people to understand that seeing young people who offend through a criminal justice/risk lens is harmful for them, harmful for their outcomes, harmful for the community and makes them more likely to commit offences. I don’t think we’re anywhere near having a consensus on that through the system, particularly within HMIP.”


The use of unsuitable language (eg language disparities) in relation to children and their support services was reported across all groups. Particular emphasis was placed upon a failure to refer to children as ‘children’ (ie contrary to tenet one of the Child First strategy) and instead, discussing them as ‘young people’.

“When a child is in a police station, it’s vital that their advocate ensures the system focuses on them as children… the custody side is still far from where it needs to be and still thinks of children as adults. I hear so many people saying ‘well they’re six foot four, they’re eighteen stone’, and they’re this and that. And you know, physically they may be that big, but mentally, where are they at?”

(Inspectorate)

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15 See table 5 in appendix V for the frequency of reference to the key features relating to support of and guidance for Child First for each stakeholder group

3.3 Support: Supporting and guiding the implementation of Child First in practice

This section analyses stakeholder group responses to the final question: What form of support/guidance might help the process of implementing Child First in practice? Five key findings emerged from analyses of whole sample responses to this question15:

1. Cognisance was the most commonly reported feature of practice support requirements for the operation of Child First, with the themes of development of understanding, guidance, information, support, knowledge and incongruence all reported as highly relevant.

2. Support for the development of understanding involved educating other agencies about Child First and promoting system-wide awareness. Stakeholders established the need for the dissemination of formal guidance, information, support that provides them with clarity of meaning regarding what Child First is.

3. Knowledge requirements focused on the development of an evidence-base for Child First and knowledge sharing within-and between agencies. Negotiating any incongruence between delivering Child First practice and the wider-system and (especially) inspectorate expectations of risk management was a key support requirement.

4. Professional relationships were central to the support requirements of stakeholder. The need for educating others across/beyond the YJS and maintaining organisational credibility by defending professional decision-making was reported as a crucial means of negotiating philosophical and cultural differences.

5. Organisational identity support requirements were linked to clarity of purpose, empowered practitioners, alleviating professional anxieties about inspection outcomes and retaining professional, organisational integrity in work with agencies with differing values.

Cognisance as supporting the operation of Child FirstCognisance was the feature most strongly associated with stakeholder support requirements for implementing Child First, with three themes reported as most relevant: knowledge, development of understanding, and guidance, information, support.

Stakeholders reported their need for support and guidance focused on development of understanding of Child First (community, research, strategy), particularly supporting and helping them in educating others and promoting system-wide awareness of Child First.

“We work closely with schools, but it’s work in progress… we’re not in a place where we’re speaking the same language or have the same approach… Their priorities seem slightly different from ours… they tend to mirror other parts of society or other agencies… such as the police, the general public or the courts… There are still people out there that want to see their pound of flesh… where is punishment going to leave anybody?”

(Community: Prevention and Diversion Team Manager)

Promoting system-wide awareness to enable all organisations and professionals to employ the Child First principle featured as an important sub-theme of development of understanding (all groups except custody).


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“When you talk about it operating in practice, there’s something about your organisation, staff skills, making sure they’re Child First with children. Child First needs to be something that’s adopted across other partner agencies. For example, trying to find somebody a placement, we’ll need children’s social care to understand Child First principles for the support that they might need, or if we want specific accommodation with particular needs met, we’re going to need housing associations to understand what Child First means.”


Development of the evidence-base supporting Child First and dissemination of that knowledge was considered by stakeholders as a significant support theme (all groups except custody). Notably, the importance of a robust Child First evidence-base to support practice and influence policymaking was highlighted.

“Everything has to be evidence-based before you can achieve change, so I think if we can embed Child First and demonstrate benefits, especially around longer-term benefits in terms of if you can implement a way of working that reduces reoffending then automatically you can start to use that.”

(Strategy)

The potential benefits of interagency knowledge sharing across and beyond the YJS was an important sub-theme of cognisance. There was an enthusiasm for agencies to have the opportunity to learn what effective Child First practice ‘looks like’ through the availability of exemplars (community, inspectorate, strategy).

“Often with working with high caseloads and the ability to learn whilst we’re working is maybe not always there, or not always encouraged, to improve our knowledge. I think new knowledge, in certain areas would be beneficial to all... some things I think could be joined-up learning, and that would be encouraged, I think, to get people together from different YOTs in different areas to really get their minds together and learn together. I think that would add value to our service for sure.”

(Community: Practitioner, Bail)

Stakeholders emphasised the need for access to adequate Child First guidance, information, support, with the sub-theme dissemination of Child First guidance to support and empower staff featuring as particularly significant (for all groups except custody).

“We [YJB] are revising our case management guidance, so the tone you set, the way you explain things, I think that helps to describe where we can make changes in terms of the messages and things that we are saying. I don’t think you can do a three hundred and sixty degree turn on this. You’ve just got to look at where you can influence and try and influence. But certainly, our case Management Guidance and National Standards which were published last year, which look very different to anything that had gone before, I think in some respects are our shop window.”

(Strategy)

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Ensuring clarity of meaning across all Child First documentation was reported as an important sub-theme of guidance, information, support, and an important focus for practice support (community, inspectorate, strategy). For example, with regard to the specific meanings of Child First terminology:

“One of the words that’s interesting within this approach is ‘developmentally appropriate’ or a ‘developmental approach’… what actually does that mean? Is that developmentally in terms of age? We hear a lot of talk about psychologically informed practice, we hear a lot about trauma informed practice… I don’t think necessarily there’s a common understanding of what that actually means in practice. So ‘developmentally’ is such a large word, that potentially can encompass quite a lot of different concepts.”

(Inspectorate)

Professional relationships supporting the operation of Child FirstProfessional relationships were an important feature of the support requirements of all stakeholder groups (except custody), in terms of educating others (except custody), organisational identity and philosophical and cultural differences (except custody). However, the theme of interagency partnership working was not identified as a significant support need.

Educating others, specifically educating other professionals and agencies, presented as a theme of stakeholder support requirements (community, research, strategy), as did organisational identity. In particular, maintaining organisational credibility was a frequently referenced and influential sub-theme of professional relationships that was often linked to defending professional decision-making (community, inspectorate, research).

“How do we make sure that all of our magistrates, crown court judges and district judges understand what Child First means and don’t just think it’s letting them [children] off? I don’t want to get into frequent arguments with the courts about why we’ve decided to do this or that. They need to understand the principle that we’re working with, but they also need to buy into it. That might be the harder thing to do.”


The need to negotiate philosophical and cultural differences was an important support theme. Participants expressed concern at overcoming existing tensions and incongruence between agencies with opposing perceptions and agendas (all except custody). In particular, there were concerns regarding long-term, ongoing tensions between YOTs and the inspectorate.

“The inspectorate needs to really understand what Child First means and should move away from the risk-focused work that they’re so comfortable with YOTs are nervous because they are judged by the inspectorate. So, you need to move the inspectorate, for me one of the biggest supports or guidance would be training the inspectorate far more. I know they have moved a bit, but they need to move an awful lot further.”

(Research)

For a summary of the overall consultation findings that cross-tabulates the identified features with their component themes for each consultation question, see table 6 in appendix V.


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The ‘Strategy Implementation Project’ (SIP) consultation clearly demonstrated that the implementation of youth justice policy (through the vehicle of the Child First strategic objective) is a complex and multi-faceted process that is subject to adaptation at the discretion of key stakeholders working in different local and organisational contexts (cf. Braithwaite et al. 2018). The SIP has enabled detailed, contextualised investigation of stakeholder understandings, perceptions and experiences of the conceptual, relational and practical issues shaping the implementation of Child First. Crucially, the consultation findings help to identify and begin the process of addressing specific facilitators (eg understandings, enablers, opportunities) and threats (eg misunderstandings, barriers, challenges) related to the successful implementation of Child First in practice contexts. The key overarching issues identified by the SIP can be categorised as:

• Consensus – there are variations in extent and nature of stakeholder consensus, shared understandings and the feasibility of aligning different views of Child First (and competing practice approaches) in practice, thus confronting and validating the need (arguably being met by the SIP) for ‘messy engagement of multiple players with diverse sources of knowledge’ (Davies et al. 2008: 188);

• Complexity – the complexity of realising strategy in practice and transfer delivery challenges, should be addressed by support and guidance mechanisms, designed from and addressing the perspectives of different stakeholder groups;

• Evidence – there is a vital role for generating a comprehensive evidence-base through partnership/collaboration between stakeholders regarding understandings, perceived implementation enablers/benefits, barriers/risks and resultant practice support needs.

Key features of Child First: CHILD-CENTRISM

Practice prioritising child-centrism was considered by stakeholders to be the key vehicle for implementing the Child First guiding principle in practice

The dominance of child-centrism across stakeholder responses offers strong evidence that the Child First guiding principle is becoming increasingly embedded in professional thinking and practice across the youth justice sector. Arguably, this feature is now synonymous with Child First in many stakeholder understandings and views of how the principle should operate in practice. Indeed, child-centrism and its associated themes and sub-themes (ie sub/themes) map directly onto the central ‘see children as children’ tenet of Child First (see Introduction section). Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that child-centrism was not identified as a significant or explicit implementation support need, as it has become so embedded in existing practice, so professionals prioritised instead support needs for realising the principle in practice – typically framed as support to enhance their professional relationships and cognisance of Child First.

4. Discussion: Realising Child First in practice

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Child-centrism and its associated sub/themes have a long-standing and detailed evidence-base in research, policy and practice (Case and Browning 2021) and the consultation findings offer further validation of their centrality and influence. For example, there is a wealth of evidence emphasising the importance and influence of children’s engagement for effective youth justice practice (Case and Haines 2015), particularly through enhancing child-centric communication methods (Case et al 2021), prioritising relational work (Drake et al., 2014) and promoting a positive intervention focus (Haines et al 2013), all of which were identified as essential to the operation of Child First.

Stakeholder understandings of Child First indicated their appreciation of adult responsibilities to support children in realising rights and entitlements (irrespective of circumstance/status) and realising rights to childhood (UNCRC, Art. 2 – UNICEF 2016). These issues informed stakeholder perceptions of the operation of Child First, namely realising universal access to services (MoJ/Welsh Government 2019). Furthermore, the child-centrism theme of prioritising need reflects and supports the guidelines on child-friendly justice set out by the Council of Europe (2010) – that all youth justice responses should be adapted to, and focused upon, the needs of the child (see Case and Browning 2021 for a detailed discussion). Relatedly, it was established in the consultation that all work should be informed by developmental sensitivity, taking into account both maturity (McAra and McVie 2015) and the impact of trauma upon a child’s development (Bellis et al 2019). Crucially, many stakeholders understand and envisage the operation of Child First as having a positive intervention focus (see Haines and Case 2015 for a full account of ‘Positive Youth Justice’). This theme aligns closely with tenets 2-4 of Child First (see table 1 in the Introduction).

Recommendations: Child-centric practice should be prioritised by promoting Child First principles and collaboration between stakeholders

• Child First as the guiding principle for youth justice: Child First should be understood as ‘a philosophical stance that is fundamental to the way in which... other objectives are pursued’ (Bateman 2020: 6). It should not be reduced in its explanation or implementation to a prescriptive practice model, framework or isolated strategic objective

• Stakeholder collaboration promoting child-centrism: the YJB should lead a stakeholder collaboration exercise to produce detailed guidance on the implementation of Child First/centric practice (eg coordinating and reconciling revised Case Management Guidance with HMIP Inspection criteria), to identify positive practice examples and to augment practitioner training (eg through the Unitas-led Youth Justice Effective Practice Certificate), including addressing a series of conceptual, practice and training gaps (see Cognisance recommendations)

• Revisit out-of-court guidance: the YJB should re-evaluate and appropriately revise their National Standards guidance to practitioners regarding out-of-court processes. Current guidance does not fully address stakeholder concerns regarding child-centrism, largely because ‘There is no explicit indication that rights [realising rights and entitlements], best interests [prioritising need] or minimising levels of intervention [positive intervention focus] should contribute to the decision-making process, as might be expected in guidance intended to direct child first practice’ (Bateman 2020: 5)


https://www.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/unicef-convention-rights-child-uncrc.pdf

https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-05/youth-justice-blueprint_0.pdf

https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-05/youth-justice-blueprint_0.pdf




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Key features of Child First: PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPSDeveloping, supporting and reconciling professional relationships and organisational identities/objectives is essential to the implementation of Child First

Professional relationships were commonly reported by stakeholders as extremely influential on their understandings (conceptual and operational) of, and support needs around, implementing Child First in practice. In particular, interagency partnership working was pivotal to stakeholder understandings and operation of Child First, particularly when animated by whole systems responses to children who offend (cf. Positive Youth Justice – Haines and Case 2015), which was seen by stakeholders as essential to the effective transfer of Child First policy/strategy into practice (ie the ‘relational sphere of influence’ in policy to practice pathways – Case, Drew, Hampson, Jones and Kennedy 2020). An integral, inevitable issue for such working in a Child First context is managing conflict within-and between organisations (cf. Case et al. 2020; Case and Hampson 2019).

Managing conflict was an issue that influenced stakeholder perceptions of the operational enablers of/barriers to the implementation of Child First, so necessitating detailed support and guidance from governance organisations. Although a degree of conflict is inevitable when employing strategy to implement any policy due to competing organisational/occupational interests, between organisations (eg interagency partnership working) and within organisations (especially multi-agency structures such as youth offending teams – see Souhami 2007), addressing this issue (and its associated issue of incongruence) constructively remains central to several recommendations emerging from the SIP.

The issue of interagency partnership working (notably its component of managing conflict) was strongly influenced by philosophical and cultural differences. These differences were central to stakeholder understandings of Child First, their perceived ability to implement the principle in practice and identified as a crucial support need. As outlined in the analyses, this theme was understood and operationalised by stakeholders as a mixture of competing organisational philosophies and language disparities (see also incongruence discussion in the Cognisance section).

Stakeholders also identified promoting Child First practice, consisting of engaging and persuading across/beyond the YJS and maintaining organisational integrity (Souhami 2019), as influencing understandings of Child First, their perceptions of its operation in practice – so an area in which they require further support.

Community stakeholders reported professional anxieties regarding barriers to Child First operation, particularly when considering how they could begin educating others (namely the courts – magistrates, crown court judges, district judges) about the value of Child First as a constructive and not overly ‘lenient’ response to offending by children. Other community stakeholders reported difficulties when attempting to strike a balance between supporting a child, maintaining the integrity of a court which may be intolerant of children who appear before it repeatedly.

Maintaining organisational integrity was a commonly reported concern for practitioners when presenting their recommendations for enforcement avoidance or diversion to other services. Similar tensions and professional anxieties exist regarding YOT/police relationships which are rooted in philosophical and cultural differences, specifically competing organisational philosophies which inform out-of-court decision-making (diversion). Where YOT practitioners feel enforcement colleagues (police) respect their professional decision-making, they describe supportive partnership arrangements as having developed over time.

Although many of these professional (adult-focused) practice issues are not reflected explicitly in the operational definition of Child First, they are vital to operationalising the guiding principle

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in practice contexts. Indeed, the centrality of professional relationships and its constituent themes (interagency partnership working, educating others) and particularly organisational identity (operationalised by: clarity of purpose, empowered practitioners and professional anxieties) is emphasised in YJB National Standards (MoJ/YJB 2019), YJB Case Management Guidance (YJB 2019) and HMIP inspection criteria (HMIP 2021a) – all stating the importance of effective multi-agency partnership arrangements for information-sharing, planning, decision-making and monitoring of practice. However, the stakeholder data goes even further into these broader issues, unpacking them into sub-themes (eg whole systems, managing conflict, engaging and persuading others across/beyond the YJS, maintaining organisational integrity) that require much closer consideration by governance groups (eg MoJ, YJB, HMIP) in their strategic and practice guidance.

Recommendations: Professional relationships must become a central focus of leading, managing and supporting Child First in practice• Central leadership: the YJB should continue their strong, clear leadership and promotion

of the Child First agenda through Child First-focused revisions to guidance, evidence-generation exercises (eg this project, its evidence-base predecessor) and collaboration with relevant stakeholders within and beyond the YJS (including children)

• Support local leadership: youth justice governance organisations (eg MoJ, YJB, HMIP) should offer bespoke support to local governance and leadership structures and systems (eg YOTs, police, courts, third sector) in developing Child First support services that are of personalised, responsive for all children and focused on needs and positive outcomes (ie Child First ‘local penal cultures’ – Goldson and Briggs 2021)

• YOT leadership: YOT Management Boards should be empowered, educated and supported to make local, context-specific strategic decisions, to develop clear, consistent understanding of Child First and to exercise advocacy of their YOT’s Child First work

• Localised partnership working: the Youth Justice Plan of every local authority area should be explicitly and evidentially Child First in its objectives, processes and proposed outcomes and, crucially, should link to and inform (in Child First ways) other multi-agency children’s plans and policies in the local area

• Evidence-based partnership: more explicit and consistent emphasis should be placed on evidence-based practice development of youth justice services, structures, systems, partnership arrangements and plans. All development should include a range of stakeholders from the youth justice sector and beyond (including children)

• Whole systems approach: organisations/professionals from across and beyond the YJS should pursue more whole systems and integrated systemic responses to children who offend, with the adult professional held primarily responsible for securing children’s access to the full range of Child First tenets (eg child-centric themes of realising rights and entitlements, prioritising need, positive intervention focus, developmental sensitivity)

• See children as children, not offenders: cohering leadership, partnership working and whole systems approaches around ‘seeing children as children’ (ie child-centrism) provides a significant step forward in managing conflict (eg disparate language use) and incongruence (absorbing diverse and conflicting approaches – Souhami 2007), engaging and persuading others across/beyond the YJS, maintaining organisational integrity and in identifying, acknowledging, negotiating, minimising and reconciling philosophical and cultural differences within- and between-organisations (see Souhami 2007)


https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/case-management-guidance

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/about-hmi-probation/about-our-work/our-standards-and-ratings/


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Key features of Child First: COGNISANCEDeveloping, supporting and reconciling professional relationships and organisational identities/objectives is essential to the implementation of Child First

Evaluating understanding of Child First across policy and practice contexts was a key aim of the consultation exercise, particularly as these understandings can populate development of the evidence-base that informs the guiding principle (eg reflected in the YJB Resource Hub, YJB and HMIP guidance, external publications – see Case and Browning 2021). Stakeholders across all groups stressed the importance of cognisance of Child First (their own and that of other professionals – unpacked and operationalised as knowledge, development of understanding (a theme identified as pivotal to the operation of Child First) and guidance, information, support as central to their consistent and faithful (current and future) implementation of Child First in practice.

Whilst cognisance was the least frequently reported feature in terms of stakeholder understandings and operational views regarding Child First, it was the feature that stakeholders reported needing the most support with. This finding strongly indicates the need for further development of policy/strategy to practice implementation guidance shaped by evolving evidence, knowledge and understanding of the principle. The prioritisation of support to develop stakeholder cognisance could also explain the absence of child-centrism as an identified support need. Stakeholders seem to view child-centrism as synonymous with the Child First principle and/or do not always fully understand its meaning in (their) practice contexts, so may initially require intensive support to develop their cognisance of what Child First actually is before they are able to identify their support needs around implementing the strategy and guiding principle.

Stakeholder feedback aligns with research evidence suggesting that cognisance (awareness, knowledge, understanding) of the paradigms/models, concepts, theories and tenets that underpin contemporary youth justice is an essential influence upon policy implementation (through strategic direction and guidance) and success or failure in frontline practice (Case and Hampson 2019). Consultation feedback also reflects the evidence-base, indicating that stakeholder misunderstandings are a key feature of policy failure, whilst active stakeholder engagement (eg to develop understandings and address misunderstandings and incongruence within- and between-organisations) is a key feature of policy implementation success (Hudson et al. 2019).

Cognisance was considered to be especially crucial to clear, practical implementation support, a conclusion reflected strongly in the stakeholder groups’ prioritisation of guidance, information, support to enable disseminating Child First guidance centrally (eg by governance organisations) and locally (eg by YOT Management Boards). It is no surprise, therefore, that cognisance facilitated engaging and educating others and was considered vital for clarity of meaning in relation to Child First. Professional understandings and consistent implementation of the guiding principle in practice has been facilitated by activities, language use and communication with children, in line with research evidence (from stakeholder consultations) regarding the ‘coalface’ challenges to policy implementation faced by practitioners (Case et al. 2020) and the demonstrable ‘pathways’ to policy implementation (through strategy) in practice (Case and Hampson 2019).


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Stakeholders reported that their knowledge of the guiding principle and how to apply it is/can be enhanced by development of the evidence-base for Child First practice. They reported that knowledge should be shared across and beyond the YJS (ie knowledge sharing) to facilitate educating others (including the public), to foster system-wide awareness of Child First and to promote Child First terminology across and beyond the sector – reflected in the recent adoption of the term ‘child’ rather than ‘young person’ in MoJ, YJB, and HMIP publications.

The community and inspectorate stakeholder groups in particular expressed a desire for greater dialogue between stakeholder groups. For the inspectorate, the function of that dialogue was to provide them with the opportunity for educating others by sharing inspection findings and evidence with YOTs and to consider where (and if) HMIP inspection standards prompt improved YOT services. For the community group, engaging in between-group dialogue was framed as a mutually beneficial reciprocal learning activity, involving knowledge sharing and knowledge acquisition regarding how other groups and other localities negotiate the expectations for Child First practice, alongside the public protection objective of HMIP.

Stakeholders identified incongruence (eg differences/contradictions/lack of fit) between organisational philosophies and practices as a highly significant obstacle to implementing Child First, particularly to ambitions to educate others and share knowledge. Several groups reported using Child First as a theory and philosophy to guide practice, but viewed incongruence (eg professional disagreement, confusion, contradiction) between partner organisations as obstructive, often through its influence on professional relationships and organisational identity. The most common example was incongruence between YJB/YOT pursuit of Child First practice in the context of continued risk-led YOT inspections by HMIP was a significant challenge/barrier to successful policy implementation. Whilst between-group incongruence is to be expected, it was also apparent within groups (see critique of YJB and HMIP guidance in the Introduction section of this report). For example, contradictory views regarding language emerged across the inspectorate group, with some emphasis placed upon inappropriate, non-child-focused language of policies and legislation (eg use of ‘young people’ rather than ‘children’), whilst the language of risk and responsibilisation was consistently employed. Therefore, incongruence between practices, principles, priorities, agendas and understandings was the biggest challenge for the successful implementation of Child First in practice.

Incongruence was operationalised and evidenced most frequently through stakeholder reports of stigmatising constructions of children (eg blaming and shaming), the operation of risk mechanisms and priorities (eg promoting understandings of offending, assessments and interventions founded in the risk paradigm) and justice-based language (eg references to ‘offenders’, ‘risk’ and ‘punishment’). All of these issues were reported as contrary to the progressive goals and practices promoted by the tenets of the Child First guiding principle (see Introduction; see also (Case and Browning 2021). Crucially, continued adherence to risk mechanisms and priorities (eg risk management-based objectives) presents as the most significant barrier and threat to the successful implementation of the Child First guiding principle in youth justice practice. Prioritising managing the risk presented by (not to) children (eg risk of reoffending, risk of harm to others) within justice-based approaches is regressive and antithetical (oppositional, incongruent/contradictory, damaging) to Child First. It restricts, obstructs and corrupts the child-centrism, cognisance and constructive professional relationships that can produce better outcomes for children who offend.



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Recommendations: Develop sector knowledge and understanding of Child First through support, guidance and collaboration• Collaboration: understanding, operationalising, implementing and disseminating

Child First should be informed by continuous collaboration with stakeholders across multiple political, policymaking, managerial and ‘downstream’ frontline practice contexts

• Address conceptual, practice and training gaps: YJB should lead collaborative exercises addressing specific conceptual, practical and training gaps relating to implementing Child First through effective practitioner communication during interactions with children (cf. Case et al. 2021), applying emerging evidence around trauma-informed practice/adverse childhood experiences (Case and Browning 2021), prioritising rights and needs-focused assessment and intervention planning (eg out-of-court, AssetPlus), critically-exploring restorative justice agendas (cf. HMIP 2021c) and shaping (YJEPC) training modules (eg Child First not being a standalone module amongst other (risk-focused) modules)

• Develop concrete outcomes for Child First: YJB should collaborate with stakeholders to develop concrete practice outcomes against which to measure and evaluate Child First implementation (cf. Bateman 2020), with focus on operationalising and measuring certain under-developed objectives – diversion, desistance, engagement and relational work (eg with a view to revising the ‘YJB ‘Participation Strategy’), positive outcomes and positive identity development

• Pursue common ground: YJB and HMIP should collaborate (with relevant stakeholders) in open-minded, transparent ways to identify alignment/common ground in understandings, implementation and the practice inspection/evaluation of key Child First concepts (eg desistance, positive outcomes, strengths, engagement) and to constructively manage differences (eg incongruence) to avoid administrative and organisational siloes (cf. Hudson et al. 2019)

• Re-evaluate risk reliance: YJB should collaborate with stakeholders (notably HMIP) to pursue alignment/common ground in understandings, implementation and evaluation of the continued (in)appropriateness of the ‘risk’ management lens (eg in shaping understandings of desistance) in practice/training guidance and inspection criteria. Where management of risk is considered essential and non-negotiable, this should be part of a wider safeguarding agenda (for children and others) and framed as protective and supportive of the child

• HMIP cognisance: HMIP are encouraged to critically reflect upon the project evidence and previous evidence-base (Case and Browning 2021) to fulfil their stated intention ‘to follow the evidence as it evolves .. [to] determine where the academic research leads us to refine and amend our approach to inspection’ (HMIP 2020: 6). An inspection culture shift towards consistently, explicitly rewarding Child First practice complements existing HMIP guidance (2020:10) to YOTs to ‘protect against the dangers of responsibilising children for their ability to move away from offending’ and for ‘actively supporting… children through future-focused work to develop strengths and opportunities’

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/07/Academic-Insights-McCartan.pdf


https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/06/Academic-Insights-Building-restorative-probation-services.pdf




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Summary of recommendations: Feature by target stakeholder/s

Child-centrism: Prioritise Child First principles and promote collaboration between stakeholders

Child First as the guiding principle for youth justice MoJ, YJB, HMIP

Stakeholder collaboration promoting child-centrism YJB, all stakeholders

Revisit out-of-court guidance YJB, YOTs

Professional relationships: Interagency working practices are central to leading, managing and supporting the implementation of Child First

Central leadership YJB, HMIP, MoJ

Support local leadership MoJ, YJB, HMIP, YOT/ Management Boards

YOT leadership YJB, YOT/ Management Boards

Localised partnership working All stakeholders

Evidence-based partnership YJB, all stakeholders

Whole systems approach All stakeholders

See children as children, not offenders All stakeholders

Cognisance: Develop sector knowledge and understanding of Child First through support, guidance and collaboration

Collaboration All stakeholders

Address conceptual, practice and training gaps

YJB, HMIP. Unitas

Develop concrete outcomes for Child First

YJB, HMIP

Pursue common ground YJB, HMIP, MoJ

Re-evaluate risk reliance HMIP, (YJB)

HMIP Cognisance HMIP


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Conclusion: Realising Child First in practice The ‘Strategy Implementation Project’ (SIP) demonstrates that Child First is being embraced as a guiding principle for youth justice practice in England and Wales. Stakeholder perspectives, particularly the continued emphasis of child-centrism and the need to address incongruence in conceptual and operational understandings of Child First, provide strong support that Child First is currently functioning as the principle that guides contemporary, progressive, evidence-based youth justice practice (subsuming previously dominant, now-outdated risk management approaches. Understanding Child First as a principle primarily (rather than an isolated strategic objective or practice model) raises issues for how it can be measured and evaluated in practice terms, so the provision of outcome measures to operationalise Child First would seem essential in order to further evidence the culture shift that has been mobilised by Child First. The consultation findings and recommendations support the current and future prioritisation of the Child First guiding principle in YJB dissemination and communications (with stakeholders internal and external to the YJS), strategic plans (including the Business Plan), practice guidance, evidence-generation mechanisms such as the funding of practice developments (eg the ongoing Child First ‘Pathfinder’ projects) and continued collaboration (at a distance) with independent academic/researcher ‘critical friends’ (eg this consultation exercise).

It is abundantly clear that understanding, operationalising, implementing, revising and evaluating/inspecting of Child First should take priority over outdated and harmful risk management agendas. Child First should be informed by continuous, contextualised collaboration with a range of stakeholders across multiple political, policymaking, strategic, managerial and ‘downstream’ frontline practice contexts (cf. Ansell et al. 2017), along with input from academic and research professionals. Indeed, the YJB commitment to ‘develop and implement systems and processes which encourage collaborative working’ (YJB 2021b: 12) has already been reflected in the activities of their stakeholder liaison networks and in their Business Plan to work ‘in collaboration with sector leaders to test and challenge our thinking and to inform our advice to decision makers’ (YJB 2021b: 8). It is essential, of course, that such processes remain sensitive to local and organisational contexts. Crucially, their aim should not be a protracted and infeasible search for unanimous consent, but rather the identification of sufficient common ground (eg employing the shared language of ‘child’ rather than ‘young person’) to enable progress and legitimacy to supersede ongoing conflicts and organisational agendas (cf. Hudson et al. 2019).

Collaborative mechanisms focused on further developing implementation of Child First through ‘reforming the structural framework which profoundly influences the way children in trouble are treated’ (Bateman 2020: 7) should be established, consolidated and extended. These reforming mechanisms and structures should consider ‘what the evidence suggests appropriate system reform might look like’ (YJB 2021b: 8). Implementing Child First should prioritise the re-evaluation and revision of centralised guidance frameworks such as YJB National Standards, Case Management Guidance and HMIP inspection criteria – preventing such frameworks from developing in silos without meaningful strategic and operational input from key stakeholder groups and partners. Crucially, collaboration should be extended beyond the YJS (‘youth justice is not an island’ – Bateman 2020: 9) in the pursuit of localised ‘whole systems’ responses (‘service configurations’ – Goldson and Briggs 2021) for children in trouble that incorporate a range of professional bodies, systems and knowledge-bases that enable positive outcomes for children.

The consultation evidence indicates that the YJB should be viewed (and view itself) as an ‘implementation broker’ for Child First, offering expert, evidence-led support tailored to local contexts and sensitive to ‘bottom-up’ discretion and dilemmas. Implementation support should be focused on problem-solving – collaborating to define problems/issues (eg of understanding






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and operationalising Child First and its associated features and themes) and how to address these problems in practice, with the YJB providing technical support, troubleshooting problems, brokering areas of dispute and encouraging the utilisation of research and evidence (see also Hudson et al. 2019; Henkel 1991).

Governance support should also focus on capacity building – developing practitioner skills and competencies through training, peer learning, information, guidance, project management skills etc. Strategic support focused on problem-solving and capacity building enables local stakeholders to develop sustainable knowledge-bases and relevant skills to implement the Child First guiding principle in their youth justice practice. An obvious priority for such support is the practice guidance provided to frontline professionals, most notably the Case Management Guidance that is currently under revision. It is strongly recommended that the YJB extend their mechanisms of collaboration with stakeholders (including children) to inform this redeveloped guidance. It is also recommended that the YJB collaborate with stakeholder partners to critically reflect on whether practice guidance sufficiently incorporates the tenets/components of their Child First principle (YJB 2021; see also Case and Browning 2021) and the features/themes/sub-themes identified by stakeholders in this consultation project. The support offered to the current consultation exercise by all participant stakeholder groups strongly indicates both the desire and capacity for continued critical reflection and offers encouragement that this could be conducted in collaborative, child-focused ways.

Finally, it can be concluded at this early stage that, guided by the Child First principle, youth justice practice is moving away from being prescriptive and process-driven and towards becoming more discretionary and outcome-focused. Child First is now the established guiding principle for youth justice, so it remains crucial to be able to measure and demonstrate its development and success (or otherwise) in practice to support investment, capacity building and resource allocation. Currently, however, it is ‘difficult to identify any concrete outcomes that could be used as measures of child first practice’ and practitioners have ‘no yardstick against which their activities – or absence thereof – can be objectively assessed’ (Bateman 2020: 5). Therefore, the issue of what constitutes Child First practice outcomes, notably the pivotal positive outcomes for children and the prosocial identity that allegedly drives these outcomes (as their ‘theory of change’ – Hazel et al. 2017), remains a conceptual, strategic and operational void in the evidence-led implementation, development and evaluation of the Child First principle. Consequently, governance organisations (most notably the YJB) must collaborate with stakeholder groups (including academic researchers) to identify suitable concepts, procedures and standards for better understanding, measurement and scrutiny of ‘evidence-based’ Child First performance (Case and Browning 2021).

Taken together, the open-minded, collaborative and positive professional mindsets of the participants engaged in this consultation and the insightful, progressive findings that emerged from the consultation workshops and interviews move the sector forward significantly in terms of its understanding of Child First and how this guiding principle could and should operate in practice. To conclude, the emerging emphases on constructive collaboration across and beyond the YJS consolidates the ambition of the YJB, clearly shared by many other stakeholders in the sector, for realising Child First in practice, namely that:

‘Child First is a journey… We [YJB] are still learning and building our understanding… and what this might mean for policy and practice. We are not alone on this journey.’ (YJB 2021b: 8).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/802702/YJB_Strategic_Plan_2019_to_2022.pdf


http://www.beyondyouthcustody.net/wp-content/uploads/Now-all-I-care-about-is-my-future-Supporting-the-shift-full-research-report.pdf

http://www.beyondyouthcustody.net/wp-content/uploads/Now-all-I-care-about-is-my-future-Supporting-the-shift-full-research-report.pdf



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References and appendices


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Bellis, M.A., Hughes, K., Ford, K., Rodriguez, G.R., Sethi, D. and Passmore, J. (2019) ‘Life course health consequences and associated annual costs of adverse childhood experiences across Europe and North America: a systematic review and meta-analysis’. The Lancet Public Health, 4(10), pp. 517-528.

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Case, S.P. (2021) Youth Justice: A Critical Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge.

Case, S.P. and Browning, A. (2021) Child First: The evidence-base. https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/report/Child_First_Justice_the_research_evidence-base_Full_report_/14152040

Case, S.P. and Haines, K.R. (2009) Understanding youth offending: Risk factor research policy and practice. Cullompton: Willan.

Case, S.P. and Haines, K.R. (2015) Children First, Offenders Second: The centrality of engagement in positive youth justice. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 54(2), pp. 157-175.

Case, S.P. and Haines, K.R. (2021) ‘Abolishing youth justice systems: Children first, offenders nowhere’. Youth Justice Journal. 21(1), pp. 3-17.

Case, S.P. and Hampson, K. (2019) ‘Youth justice pathways to change: Drivers, challenges and opportunities’. Youth Justice Journal, 19(1), pp. 25-41.

Case, S.P., Drew, J., Hampson, K., Jones, G. and Kennedy, D. (2020) ‘Professional perspectives of youth justice policy implementation: Contextual and coalface challenges. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 59(2) pp. 214-232.

Case, S.P., Lorenzo-Dus, N. and Morton, R. (2021) ‘YOT Talk: Examining the communicative influences on children’s engagement with youth justice assessment processes’, European Journal of Criminology. Online first.

Creaney, S (2020) ‘Are we all playing an elaborate game?’ A Bourdieusian analysis of children’s participation in decision making in youth justice. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

Davies, H., Nutley, S. and Walter, I. (2008) ‘Why ‘Knowledge Transfer’ Is Misconceived for Applied Social Research.’, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy 18(3), pp. 188-190

Drake, D.H., Fergusson, R. and Briggs, D.B. (2014) ‘Hearing new voices: Re-viewing youth justice policy through practitioners? Relationships with young people’, Youth Justice, 14(1), pp. 22–39.

Goldson, B. and Briggs, D. (2021) ‘Making Youth Justice: Local penal cultures and differential outcomes – lessons and prospects for policy and practice’. London: Howard League for Penal Reform. Retrieved from https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Making-Youth-Justice.pdf

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Gunn, L. A. (1978) ‘Why is Implantation so Difficult?’, Management Services in Government 33, pp. 169–176.

Haines, K.R. and Drakeford, M. (1998) Young People and Youth Justice. London: Palgrave.

Haines, K.R. and Case, S.P. (2012) ‘Is the Scaled Approach a Failed Approach?’ Youth Justice, 12(3), pp. 212-228.

Haines, K.R. and Case, S.P. (2015) Positive Youth Justice: Children First, Offenders Second. Bristol: Policy Press.

Haines, K.R., Case, S.P., Charles, A.D. and Davies, K. (2013) ‘The Swansea Bureau: A Model of Diversion from the Youth Justice System’. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 41(2), pp. 167–187.

Hampson, K.S. (2018) ‘Desistance Approaches in Youth Justice – The Next Passing Fad or a Sea-Change for the Positive?’ Youth Justice 8(1), pp. 18-33.

Hazel, N. and Bateman, T. (2021) ‘Supporting Children’s Resettlement (‘Re-entry’) After Custody: Beyond the Risk Paradigm’, Youth Justice, 21(1), pp. 71-89.

Henkel, M. (1991) Government, Evaluation and Change. London: Jessica Kingsley.

Hupe, P.L. and Hill, M.J. (2015). ‘And the rest is implementation.’ Comparing approaches to what happens in policy processes beyond Great Expectations. Public Policy and Administration. 31(2), pp. 103-121.

Hudson, B., Hunter, D. and Peckham, S. (2019) Policy failure and the policy-implementation gap: can policy support programs help? Policy Design and Practice, 2(1), pp. 1-14.

Kelly, L. and Armitage, V. (2015) ‘Diverse diversions: Youth justice reform, localized practices, and a ‘New Interventionist Diversion’?’ Youth Justice, 15(2), pp. 117–133.

Lipsky, M. (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

McAra, L. and McVie, S. (2010) ‘Youth crime and justice: Key messages from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime’, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 10(2), pp. 179-209.

McAra, L. and McVie, S. (2015) ‘The Case for Diversion and Minimum Necessary Intervention’, In: B. Goldson and J. Muncie (eds), Youth Crime and Justice 2nd ed. London: Sage.

Morgan, D. L., Fellows, C. and Guevara, H. (2008) Emergent Approaches to Focus Group Research. In: S. Hesse-Bibeer, Handbook of Emergent Methods. Guildford Press.

National Police Chiefs’ Council (2015) Child-centred Policing. National Strategy for the Policing of Children and Young People. London: NPCC.

Pew Charitable Trust/MacArthur Foundation (2017) Four Ways Implementation Support Centers Assist in the Delivery of Evidence-Based Programmes. Washington DC.

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Souhami (2007) Transforming Youth Justice: Occupational Identity and Cultural Change. Cullompton: Willan.

Souhami, A (2019) Multi-agency practice and professional identity. in M. Robb, H Montgomery and R. Thomson (eds), Critical Practice with Children and Young People. 2nd edition, Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 179-197.

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39

Child First Justice: Making it work in practiceWe have recently documented and are continuing to build upon the evidence base for the Child First national youth justice strategy introduced by the YJB in 2019 and translated into the National Standards in 2020.

The next stage of this timely and important project is to collaborate with key stakeholders across the youth justice sector through online workshops (of an estimated 90-120-minute duration).

Purpose of the workshopTo explore and establish:

1. Stakeholder understandings of the Child First model and principles

2. How stakeholders envisage Child First justice operating in practice

3. Anticipated opportunities, barriers and challenges to implementation across the sector

4. How implementation of the strategy in operational terms may affect roles at different stages of the YJS, and

5. The form of support/guidance that might ease the process of implementation

The workshops will be facilitated via Microsoft Teams and will be recorded. The recordings will be transcribed for academic purposes.

The project adheres to rigorous academic ethical protocols, notably:

In accordance with current data protection legislation, all data collected during workshop discussions will be considered confidential, will be stored safely, securely, and separately from attendees’ names and contact details.

All workshop attendees’ views and statements will be anonymised within subsequent reports, conference presentations, or other forms of research output.

You have the right to withdraw from the project at any time.

If you have any questions or concerns in relation to participation, please contact either:

Professor Stephen Case (Project Lead) [email protected]

Ann Browning (Research Associate) [email protected]

Appendix I: Participant project information sheet

mailto:[email protected]


40


Appendix II: Workshop slides

Note: since the workshops took place, the tenets set out in the slide above have been amended




41

The central consultation question of ‘How can the Child First guiding principle be operationalised in practice across the Youth Justice System of England and Wales’ was unpacked into five sub-questions for exploration with different stakeholder groups working within and beyond the YJS:

1. Understandings: What do you understand ‘Child First’ to mean?

2. Operation: How do you envisage ‘Child First’ justice operating in practice?

3. Opportunities: Will embedding ‘Child First’ practice throughout the YJS yield new opportunities for the way you and your colleagues work?

4. Challenges: Do you anticipate any potential challenges/barriers to embedding ‘Child First’ across the YJS?

5. Support: What form of support/guidance might ease the process of implementing Child First in practice?

Consultation workshops: What we didThe preparatory stage of the consultation involved the identification of suitable stakeholder groups and deciding upon a participant recruitment plan. An initial call for workshop participants was issued (August 2020) across the youth justice sector to stakeholder organisations working with, or indirectly for, children who come to the attention of the YJS following an offence. Many of these stakeholder organisations were already known to the researchers through existing, long-term research and networking relationships and facilitated this call through their internal communication processes. These organisations were: YJB (including YJB Cymru), HMIP, Youth Custody Service, Association of YOT Managers, YOT Managers Cymru and the Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice. We sought to ensure representation from across a range of professional roles in the sector, including policy, heads of service, operational managers, frontline practitioners and academics/researchers, working at different stages/parts of the youth justice process (eg out-of-court, community, custody, resettlement, inspection, research, academia). Table 3 demonstrates the number of participants from each stakeholder group.

Solicitation of stakeholder interest was accompanied by a Participant Information Sheet (see appendix I) that:

• Explained the purpose of the consultation

• Described how it would be facilitated and recorded via online videoconferencing

• Listed the questions that would be asked

• Informed the participants of the ethical protocols that would be in place.

Appendix III: Technical Appendix – Methodology and analyses

42


Table 3: Composition of stakeholder groups

Group No. Roles Areas of expertise

Community 20 YOT Heads of service, Operations/Team managers, and Practitioners

Resettlement; diversion; early intervention; family support; mental health; prevention; courts/bail; community orders

Custody 7 Senior / middle management Healthcare, resettlement, safeguarding, use of force, policy

Inspectorate 7 Senior / middle management (policy, research, project leads), seconded staff and inspectors

Inspection of YOT provision, policy development, inspection standards

Research 10 Academic and organisational researchers

Children’s rights, inspection of YOTs, organisational data analysts

Strategic 37 Senior and middle managers from across a range of YJS domains (including healthcare), also policymakers, analysts, advisors

Health/mental health care, policy, analysis, Ofsted

The call for participants was met with considerable enthusiasm and a total of 73 key stakeholders16 were recruited from across the youth justice sector. All participants are members of bodies responsible for the strategic oversight, policy development and inspection of youth justice services in England and Wales, are members of research and practice knowledge exchange fora and/or are engaged directly in youth justice service delivery. The stakeholder groups were not necessarily strictly aligned with the consultation workshop groups as some participants were from the same organisation, but performed very different tasks, whilst others brought together participants from a range of organisations sharing a common philosophy. Instead, the stakeholders were categorised generically in accordance with the role(s) that they performed:

Due to lengthy ethical approval processes and the limited project timescale of this project, the recruitment of a range of participants from custodial settings was not feasible. Other stakeholder groups who were unable to provide participants and thus whose views are not represented in the Strategy Implementation Project (SIP) report include staff from the courts, police, children’s social care services, education and wider partnership services (eg accommodation, leaving care).

16 Stakeholder roles included senior managers (21), manager (11), policymaker (7), data analyst (2), researcher (5), advisor (2); inspector (4); YOT head of service (7), YOT operations / team manager (8) and YOT practitioner (9), with some participants performing more than one of these roles.17 One participant took part in an interview as they were unable to attend the scheduled workshop for their group, whilst another participated via email.

43

THE CHILD FIRST STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT

43

Consultation workshops: How we did themThe stakeholder consultation exercise took the form of a series of eleven workshops (from 3-15 participants in each) and two interviews x1 participant17, held between September and December 2020. Each workshop and interview consisted of a short presentation to contextualise the introduction of Child First and to explain the purpose of the consultation followed by a focus group session (the workshop slides are available in appendix II). Informed consent for participation was sought verbally on an ‘opt-out’ basis upon commencement of each workshop. All workshops were mediated and recorded via an online video-conferencing platform.

A workshop-focus group data collection method (see Morgan et al. 2008) was employed to:

• enable access to a large number of participants

• suit groups of participants who share a common interest, in this case, in youth justice policy and practice

• provide a less structured approach to data collection than surveys or interviewing as it allows participants to engage in natural, within-group conversation with guidance from a mediator (albeit limited)

• allow participants to share and debate examples, experiences thoughts and insights related to their common interest

• facilitate participant discussions which have the potential to reveal themes that may not emerge through other forms of data collection.

A pilot workshop including stakeholders engaged in strategic, managerial and research roles was utilised successfully to test the suitability of the approach for generation of appropriate, good quality, detailed data. The same approach was subsequently employed across the remaining nine workshops. The workshop recordings were transcribed verbatim and any identifying details which could compromise participant anonymity was removed.

Ethical processesThe consultation process has adhered to rigorous academic ethical protocols, notably:

• All potential participants were provided with information regarding the consultation to enable them to provide informed consent prior to participation (see appendix I)

• All workshops were recorded (with participant permission) for transcription purposes

• In accordance with current data protection legislation, all data collected during workshop discussions was considered confidential, was stored safely, securely, and separately from participants’ names and contact details

• All participant views and statements were anonymised within subsequent reports, conference presentations, or other forms of output

• Participants were given the right to withdraw from the project at any time.

44


REALISING THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE FOR YOUTH JUSTICE

44

18 Throughout this report the overarching features are highlighted by bold font, the themes by bold italics, and the sub-themes in italic font.19 The ‘Operation’ of Child First section includes responses to questions 2, 3 and 4.20 An inclusion/exclusion reporting threshold (20%) was required due to the varied stakeholder group sizes. In the absence of consensus in the qualitative data analysis field regarding the most appropriate threshold level, the 20% threshold was based upon our academic judgement, experience and evaluation of our dataset – offering a balanced representation across the groups and avoided inclusion of sub/themes reported too infrequently to be meaningful.

Analysis of the consultation workshop data The workshop transcripts were imported into ‘NVivo’, a qualitative and mixed-methods data analysis software program developed for the management, organisation and in-depth analysis of research data. NVivo is especially useful when identifying patterns and themes across the data. Using NVivo, a detailed thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) of the workshop data was undertaken, identifying excerpts of text (often referred to as ‘codes’ in data-analysis literature) which were of relevance to the central consultation question: How can the Child First guiding principle be operationalised in practice across the Youth Justice System of England and Wales?

The excepts were further examined for commonalities and reduced by grouping and categorising. The data were repeatedly collated into fewer groupings until a range of distinct categories developed; we refer to these as sub-themes. Further analysis enabled the sub-themes to be collated into more general themes which were, in turn, grouped into three key features. Hence, each feature consists of both themes and sub-themes (table 2 provides summary definitions of the features, themes and sub-themes; detailed definitions are available in appendix IV). NVivo enabled between group comparison of responses to specific questions and the generation of tables to illustrate the frequency of reported features, themes and sub-themes18. Data from the frequency tables are used to identify the importance attached to each feature, theme and sub-theme for the whole sample and by individual group. Inclusion of numeric data in the form of frequency tables adds validity to the consultation findings.

Presentation of the consultation findingsIn the following sections, we report the whole-sample consultation findings regarding stakeholder understandings of Child First in practice, how they envisage Child First being operationalised19 and the support requirements anticipated in its implementation. We present quotations from the consultation workshops throughout to illustrate our key findings, identifying stakeholder groups in brackets on each occasion.

Features, themes and sub-themes are only included in our reporting if they make-up at least 20% of the results from the whole sample and/or from a specific stakeholder group20. Caution is urged when interpreting this data because stakeholder group sizes differ. Consequently, the proportion of reporting a feature/ theme/ sub-theme by each group is of greater relevance and validity (hence the 20% inclusion criteria) than the frequency of mentions per group.

Note also that the proportion and frequency of referencing of key features/ themes/ sub-themes does not necessarily indicate the level of detail in which each such item was discussed.

https://www.qsrinternational.com/nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software/about/nvivo

Appendix IV: Feature, theme and sub-theme definitions

Child-centrism

Engagement Realising rights and entitlements

Prioritising need Positive intervention focus


Communication: use of child-appropriate, accessible, positive, non-stigmatising language; actively listening to and communicating and collaborating with children; encouraging participatory practice and understanding the child’s journey

Relational work: make the time to properly engage with the child to build trust and strong relationships

Respecting children’s knowledge: recognise the child’s knowledge of their own life; recognise that they have a voice and that their contributions are of value

Realising rights to childhood: employ a participatory/ collaborative approach to enable the child’s voice; recognise the child’s right to a childhood and to adult protection

Realising universal access: enable access to all services, resources and opportunities, whilst addressing disparities in resourcing between localities

Recognising need: acknowledge disadvantage, vulnerability and adversity, exploitation, maltreatment, traumatic experiences including structural and individual obstacles to progress

Responding to need: develop bespoke interventions targeting individual needs and vulnerabilities; prioritise need over perceived ‘deeds’ and YJS processes; develop whole service models (eg ‘integrated care’ in custody)

Minimum intervention: avoid labelling and stigmatising processes in out-of-court work, early help, prevention and diversion

Future focus: plan forward-facing positive approaches that promote positive behaviours, pro-social identity, desistance from offending and the child’s future

A child first and foremost: responding to children in a developmentally-informed manner, taking into account levels of maturity and the potential effects of trauma upon healthy development


45

Professional relationships



Educating others Organisational identity

Competing organisational philosophies: identify and address tensions within- and between-professionals, organisations and multi-agency teams with different disciplinary backgrounds in terms of different perceptions and agendas (eg child-focused versus public protection focused services)

Language disparities: explore differences in language use that may embody an organisation’s philosophy and may be at odds with Child First tenets

Whole systems: encourage organisations and professionals from across and beyond the YJS to collaborate in supporting the child to achieve positive outcomes

Managing conflict: acknowledge and address the challenge of professionals in partner agencies and multi-agency teams often having differing and competing foci/agendas of partnership agencies

Engaging and persuading across the YJS: collaborate with partner agencies in Child First ways, such as convincing the courts of the value of contextual outcomes and desistance as a process rather than outcome

Engaging and persuading beyond the YJS: encourage external partners to prioritise the child’s needs and rights over justice processes

Clarity of purpose: define the purpose/functions of the YJS and the wider sector for the benefit of organisations, media and public; explain whose purpose is served (eg children, public, politicians); define the responsibilities of different organisations and professionals

Maintaining organisational integrity: defend professional decision-making (eg out-of-court decisions)

Empowered practitioners: pursue stakeholders respect for practitioner knowledge, expertise and discretion regarding the best youth justice/Child First approaches (eg how to use AssetPlus); prioritise needs and discretion over deeds and standardised processes; enable non-stigmatising, creative work; provide time to undertake beneficial relational work with children

Professional anxieties: retain professional credibility when working with partner agencies with differing values; maintain commitment to Child First justice without being penalised because of interventions being less risk-led; maintain the court’s integrity: when employing Child First approaches


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Cognisance

Knowledge Development of understanding


Incongruence

Development of the evidence-base: generate new knowledge from data collected by agencies and from emergent research

Knowledge sharing: share knowledge from research and practice within and beyond the YJS, showcasing exemplars of good Child First practice from YOTs considered ‘outstanding’ by the inspectorate

Promoting system-wide awareness: enable organisations and professionals (across the YJS and beyond) to support the child in achieving positive outcomes

Promoting the use of Child First terminology: encourage appropriate terminology, such as replacing ‘youth/young person’ with the term ‘child’ in all literature

Dissemination: share and promote Child First guidance to support staff in the implementation stage, and empowering their potential to improve children’s outcomes

Clarity of meaning: ensure understanding of the meaning of Child First tenets and related terms such as ‘developmentally informed’ and ‘engagement’

Stigmatising constructions: identify and avoid the inappropriate application of stigmatising, adult-based structures, systems, processes and philosophies designed to hold the individual child to account and to shame them for their actions (eg addressing the potentially stigmatising use of restorative justice mechanisms, especially reparation)

Risk mechanisms and priorities: identify, mediate and preferably avoid the use of risk-based tools and processes that run counter to Child First (eg employing risk-focused understandings within AssetPlus; HMIP emphases on risk management and pubic protection), as these can be excessive, cumbersome and contrary to Child First tenets, notably the aim of minimum intervention.

Justice-based language: understand the language of justice systems (eg ‘offender’, ‘punishment’, ‘risk’) and narratives as stigmatising, blaming and barriers to Child First

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48

Appendix V: Frequency tables for the reporting of key features (tables 4 and 5)

Table 4: Frequency of reference to the key features of Child First: Whole sample

Key featureQuestion

TotalUnderstandings Operation Opportunities Challenges Support

Child-centrism

204 88 67 101 20 480


120 86 70 164 42 482

Cognisance 87 74 37 153 49 400

Total references 1,362

Table 5: Frequency of key features reported by the stakeholder groups by question

FeatureStakeholder groups

TotalCommunity Custody Inspectorate Research Strategy

Understandings

Child-centrism

60 16 42 20 61 199


36 8 38 12 24 118

Cognisance 29 7 31 10 19 94

Total 125 31 111 42 104 411

Operation

Child-centrism

29 4 18 6 21 78


32 5 21 4 19 81

Cognisance 29 1 16 6 14 66

Total 90 10 55 16 54 225

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Barriers and Challenges

Child-centrism

51 8 20 3 19 101


70 15 34 11 36 166

Cognisance 68 19 27 11 40 163

Total 187 42 81 25 95 430

Table 5: continued...

FeatureStakeholder groups

TotalCommunity Custody Inspectorate Research Strategy

Enablers and Opportunities

Child-centrism

28 5 7 2 16 58


23 0 5 9 30 67

Cognisance 11 2 6 3 13 35

Total 62 7 18 14 59 160

Support requirements

Child-centrism

7 1 2 2 6 18


12 0 2 4 18 36


Total 34 2 9 12 42 99


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Table 6: Summary of the overall findingsA cross-tabulation of features and themes with consultation questions

Feature and theme

Question

Understandings OperationEnablers and opportunities

Barriers and challenges


Child-centrism • • • • •

Engagement • • • • •

Realising rights and entitlements

• • •

Prioritising need • •


• •


• • •


• • • • •

Philosophical and cultural difference

• • • •


• • •

Educating others • • • • •

Organisational identity • • • •

Cognisance • • • • •

Knowledge • •


• • • • •


•

Incongruence • • • •

Appendix VI: Summary of the overall findings

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Understandings of Child First

Child centrism and understandings

Community Custody Inspectorate Research Strategy Total

Child-centrism 60 16 42 20 61 199

Engagement 36 5 18 6 31 96

Communication 32 4 17 5 21 79

Relational work 15 5 0 1 1 22

Respecting children’s knowledge

8 3 1 1 18 31

Realisation of rights and entitlements

26 4 4 11 21 66

Realising rights to childhood

22 3 2 8 19 54

Realising universal access

6 2 2 4 3 17

Prioritising need 26 4 4 11 21 37

Recognising need 9 2 5 0 7 23

Responding to need 6 4 2 2 6 20


17 7 20 7 10 61

Minimum intervention 6 0 16 3 5 30

Future focus 11 7 4 4 5 31


26 7 17 6 20 76

A child first and foremost

26 7 17 6 20 76

Appendix VII: Understanding Child First – Features, themes and subthemes by group

NB: some data may be categorised under multiple sub-themes, but only count within one theme


52


Professional Relationships and understandings


Professional Relationships

36 8 38 12 24 118


14 1 31 3 11 60

Competing organisational philosophies

10 0 15 1 3 29

Language disparities 5 1 20 3 9 38


10 0 18 2 3 33

Whole Systems Approach

8 0 14 1 3 26

Managing conflict 6 0 5 1 0 12

Educating others 17 6 10 5 10 48

Engaging and persuading across the YJS

17 6 10 4 8 45

Engaging and persuading beyond the YJS

0 0 2 1 2 5

Organisational identity 22 7 17 6 12 64

Clarity of purpose 2 1 11 2 4 20

Empowered practitioners

9 1 3 1 1 15

Maintaining organisational integrity

15 6 6 3 8 38

Professional anxieties 1 0 0 0 2 3

53



Cognisance and understandings


Cognisance 29 7 31 10 17 94

Knowledge 3 0 3 1 1 8

Development of the evidence base

2 0 0 1 1 4

Knowledge sharing 1 0 3 0 0 4


16 4 23 9 12 64

Promoting system-wide awareness

5 3 6 3 3 20

Promoting the use of Child First terminology

11 1 19 6 9 46


0 0 2 2 0 4

Dissemination 0 0 0 1 0 1

Clarity of meaning 0 0 2 1 0 3

Incongruence 21 5 22 4 12 64

Stigmatising constructions

5 3 2 0 2 12

Risk mechanisms and priorities

5 0 8 0 2 15

Justice-based language

12 5 15 4 8 44


54

Operationalisation of Child First

Child-centrism and operation


Child-centrism 97 15 32 10 50 204

Engagement 43 1 10 3 16 73




4 0 2 0 8 14


31 4 6 6 12 59


21 2 3 5 10 41


13 2 3 1 2 21





32 6 10 4 17 69




20 3 14 3 14 54


20 3 14 3 14 54

Appendix VIII: Operating Child First –Features, themes and subthemes by group


55



Professional Relationships and operation



109 20 51 15 76 271


30 7 36 6 26 105


27 5 28 6 20 86



43 9 19 3 23 97


40 9 12 3 19 83




36 10 7 3 27 83


12 4 2 2 15 35




31 1 4 2 5 43


22 6 5 3 13 49



56


Cognisance and operation


Cognisance 89 22 40 16 62 229

Knowledge 11 5 11 1 11 39


4 0 4 1 8 17



51 14 26 10 34 135


28 5 14 6 24 77


27 9 14 4 10 64


5 0 4 2 4 15





17 3 6 2 8 36


19 1 10 3 13 46


33 16 8 2 9 68

57



Child-centrism support


Child-centrism 7 1 2 2 6 18

Engagement 3 0 0 0 5 8




0 0 0 0 2 2


1 0 0 2 3 6


1 0 0 2 2 5


0 0 0 0 1 1





3 1 0 0 1 5




5 1 1 3 2 12


5 1 1 3 2 12

Appendix IX: Supporting Child First –F eatures, themes and subthemes by group



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Professional relationships support



12 0 2 4 18 36


3 0 0 3 6 12


3 0 0 3 6 12



1 0 1 0 2 4


1 0 1 0 2 4




7 0 1 3 13 24


2 0 0 0 1 3




1 0 0 0 0 1


1 0 0 0 0 1


59



Cognisance support



Knowledge 5 0 3 0 6 14


3 0 3 0 3 9



5 1 0 4 8 18


5 1 0 2 8 16


0 0 0 2 0 2


8 0 2 2 3 15





0 0 0 0 1 1


4 0 0 2 3 9


0 0 0 2 1 3

7997

6/C

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Social and Policy StudiesLoughborough University Leicestershire LE11 3TU UK

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