When young people with high or complex needs are required to engage with multiple services in different places, some sort of additional support is often needed. Shifting Journey Cards is a new resource that helps understand more about the problems that stop young people travelling to youth justice appointments. Journey problems can be hidden (like having no money or lacking confidence) and engaging visual resources can encourage a fuller information exchange to help identify and address such areas. The Youth Justice Board describe effective practice as: ‘practice which produces the intended results’ vii with sector-wide performance focused on reductions in first-time entry, reoffending and the use of custody. Absence from any appointment is a barrier to these objectives as it stops practitioners understanding and responding appropriately. Discussions about journey-making can also provide a useful ‘window’ to other issues, allowing well-being to be supported in different ways.
Shifting Journey Cards were designed by young people, so they fit well with contemporary youth justice. Ways of working with young people are changing, with expectations of compliance giving way to children’s rights and voices, and successful examples of participatory policies and practices now in use. The Youth Justice Board (YJB) has also adopted Child First principles as a strategic priority, with a focus on co-constructed practice as well as young people’s strengths and long-term outcomes.
In a practice context, the shift to locally determined approaches also requires new and flexible tools that can be used in different settings. This report highlights how young people’s expert involvement in the creation of flexible communication tools can help uncover hidden problems that improve long-term well-being in a timely and well-pitched way.
It can be important for young people to be in contact with different services they require including when a community sentence is being served. Service access can be a secondary consideration but appointments are delivered in different ways and some are harder to reach than others. For example, some services provide lifts and financial help and others do not. Some services have fixed times and locations (like education and the police) and others can move to convenient sites (like youth justice appointments in the home). Short, walked journeys can be easily achieved when living close by, but longer journeys can be expensive, risky and time-consuming. This report and its underpinning research show how creative and innovative communication approaches with young people can help identify places that are harder to reach, and understand what makes things difficult.