AYJ Monthly Newsletter: February 2022
AYJ
NEWS
NEW Young Advocates Report!: “Young Advocates for Youth Justice: A youth-led report from children and young people with experience of the system”
This month, the first report from the Young Advocates Project was published! The project is led by children and young people aged 14–20 who have lived experience of the youth justice system and want to be part of a movement to drive positive change, delivered in partnership between the AYJ and Leaders Unlocked, and supported by BBC Children in Need.
The report presents findings and recommendations from engagement with over 120 young people across England and Wales, and focuses on the three priority topics of stereotypes, education and warning signs, and jail (custody). The aim was to identify patterns that run through society, and the education and justice systems overall, to find out what children and young people feel increases the chance of entering the justice system. CYPNow reported on the publication here, and Russell Webster here.
Read the Young Advocates report here.
Celebrating 1 Year of the AYJ! – Check out our highlights
This month we celebrated 1 year since we relaunched as the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ)! We are so proud of the work we have carried out over this past year and greatly appreciative to all of our fantastic members and partners, and to our funders for supporting us to improve youth justice in England and Wales, for the benefit of children, young people, and society.
Take a look through our AYJ timeline here for a roundup of our year!
Millie Harris becomes AYJ’s Policy Manager
This month, Millie Harris became AYJ’s Policy Manager. In her new role she will lead the development and delivery of AYJ’s influencing, policy and public affairs work, to drive systemic change for children in contact with the youth justice system. Read more about Millie’s role here and about our team here.
Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Justice
Various youth justice experts have produced blog posts to accompany a series of upcoming policy briefings produced by the AYJ as part of the UKRI-funded Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Justice project, delivered in partnership with the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS) at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The first blog came from Anne Longfield, Chair of the Commission on Young Lives and former Children’s Commissioner for England, highlighting the reality of the exacerbated issues faced by vulnerable children and families following the COVID-19 pandemic and calling for deep-rooted reform of the services that should be supporting them, as well as the way in which they are viewed by Government and society.
The second blog came from StopWatch, discussing inappropriate and ineffective police stop and searches on children, and highlighting the shameful racial inequalities which persist and calling for higher standards and more oversight of the practice. Make sure to keep an eye out for more upcoming blogs and the policy briefings on our website soon.
MCYS also published another research briefing this month which explores the impact of the pandemic on the ability for Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) to continue to undertake partnership work. The report highlights how challenges experienced by YOTs create a timely opportunity to re-assess partnership working.
AYJ
VIEWS
AYJ responds to the Prisons Strategy White Paper calling for long-term plan for the children's secure estate
This month AYJ responded to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Prisons Strategy White Paper which sets out the government’s 10-year vision for a reformed prison system. While we welcome that the MoJ has not included the children’s secure estate in its strategy for prisons, we urge the government to work with the sector to develop a comprehensive, long-term vision for the children’s secure estate that is desperately needed and long overdue. Read our full response here.
Our Director, Pippa Goodfellow, also joined over 50 organisations in signing a letter to Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab, addressing the White Paper’s lost opportunity to address racial disparity.
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