Working with young people transitioning to adulthood: In conversation with Sammy Odoi, Wipers Youth CIC

For our project exploring the experiences of young people transitioning into adulthood while in contact with the justice system, we spoke with Sammy, founder of AYJ member Wipers Youth CIC, to find out more about the organisation’s critical work with children and young people. We discussed the importance of continuing work with young adults after they turn 18, how best to provide this support, and challenges faced along the way.

What is your current approach to supporting young people through the transition to adulthood– and why is it important to have a specific approach for this age group?

Wipers is a Black-led organisation offering specialist mentoring to children and young people. Wipers mainly works with children in the youth justice system, but now also provides mentoring services at the Newham Youth to Adult Hub (Y2A) – a probation pilot providing targeted, wrap-around support to those aged 18-25.

Providing consistent and fluid support for this age group requires being present for the transition period, to prepare children for their move to adult services and the changes that happen throughout this process. For this reason, a Wipers mentor may begin meeting with a young person about to move to the Hub whilst they are still under supervision of youth justice services. This is important, since children are faced with a sudden drop-off in support as they transition into adult services and might not have a consistent figure guiding them through this change.

“Youth justice services are supportive of young people, but once they turn 18, probation is totally different and staff don’t have time to support specific needs and vulnerabilities. Those with special educational needs and disabilities that haven’t been picked up - which is quite a large proportion of racially minoritised children - get really left behind.”

Having a familiar face with them as they traverse changing systems, professionals and organisations is crucial for ensuring that young people aren’t left to navigate this monumental transition alone.

The work that goes on at the Newham Y2A Hub involves a consortium of Black-led voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations, such as Spark2Life, Exit Foundation and The Safety Box.

Whilst the Hub offers a range of services spanning housing, employment and drug and alcohol support services, mentors act as the ‘glue’ that links the different services.

“There are lots of different services that the young people interact with – and not all of them are steady and stable; but our mentoring has always been consistent. Young people need at least one steady professional.”

Sammy believes that young adults often have more in common with children than with the older adults on probation.

“Working with young adults as a specific group is important, because cognitively they can have more in common with a 17-year-old than a 26 year old. That’s why the Hub was set up in the first place – which is why providing support for this group is done by us, with our youth justice speciality.”

Working with young adults isn’t just a way to help young people as they lose access to child-centred systems; Sammy highlights that it’s an especially good time to get involved with vulnerable young people and encourage them into paths that veer away from the criminal justice system.

“We often don’t have to push as hard with some of the older ones to get on course; they’re more likely to be open to pushing themselves away from that lifestyle. They’re starting to get an understanding of the world, and where they want to be; you don’t have to push them as hard to engage with positive opportunities. I think that working with people that age can have more impact.”

What helps Wipers mentors connect with the young people they support?

Sammy emphasises the importance of having an organisation that, like Wipers, is Black-led, and can provide compassionate and experienced mentors whose life experiences resemble those of the young people that they connect with. This allows young people to develop relationships with mentors that are meaningful, authentic, and empathetic.

“All of the team members for the VCS organisations that work at the Hub have lived experience of being members of a marginalised group, and a lot of them also have experience of the criminal justice system.”

What are some challenges in working with this demographic – and what changes are needed?

Knowing when to treat someone as an adult: Too often in England and Wales, young adults in the criminal justice system are treated in the same way as older adults.

Thankfully, criminal justice policymakers are beginning to see the need for a targeted approach to young adults, although our current systems often assume that 18 year olds have the cognitive maturity of an adult. Whilst there are many benefits to providing support tailored to this age group, Sammy highlighted there are also challenges: for example, young people are more likely than children to have more entrenched trauma or patterns. Further recognition across the sector is needed that the specific needs of those aged 18-25 are understood, and appropriate help is given to safeguard their vulnerabilities and help them to positively engage with support.

Commissioning: It’s difficult for small, specialist organisations to secure funding. Larger organisations are far more likely to have the capacity, contacts and resources to put through successful bids.

“We’re a small organisation that can’t compete with larger ones – but we still have specialist skills to offer.”

Some commissioners are beginning to understand the urgent need for Black and racially minoritised-led organisations to secure grants and contracts to support racially minoritised children and young people, and are becoming more specific about who can apply for their funding. For example, Sammy shares that Wipers recently won a contract from HM Prison and Probation Service, who set strict criteria to ensure that those who applied represented the young people they were working with. This included that the organisation’s Board had to consist of at least 50% of people from a specified, marginalised background.

“That [criterion] was really good, and we hope that continues, and that specific funding goes to Black-led VCS organisations that have the skills and staff to do the work. It’s not just how you do the work, it’s who does it. We are benefitting from this happening more, but there’s still work to do.”

Evaluation and assessment: VCS organisations assess their work, to show funders the progress that they’re making. But some of the big funders set rigid Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), that often don’t reflect important progress that young people are making as a result of contact with organisations like Wipers. Sammy highlights that milestones like having the confidence to make a phone call, or to attend an interview, are missed if the evaluation criteria are too narrow.

“We’ve been discussing this with partners and with MOPAC, to try to find a better way to capture that in evaluation.”

What does the future hold?

Wipers’ work with young people in probation has been so successful that they’ve recently won a new bid to work with young adults on probation in Hackney, Camden and Islington. They’ll start work next month; watch this space!