Helping Professions Round Table on Youth Justice Renewal 6 December 1999 Summary of discussion for participants

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Introduction

The Youth Justice Renewal Initiative stresses the importance of developing partnerships to deal effectively with offending youth and youth at-risk in their communities. The Helping Professions Round Table, held December 6^th,1999, was the second in a series of round table discussions being held over the course of the fall 1999 and winter 2000 to provide a forum for experts in the fields of education, social services, arts and recreation, child advocacy and mental health, to explore their role in preventing youth crime, dealing with youth who have committed offences and facilitating the reintegration and rehabilitation of young offenders.

Note : The following summary reflects the views expressed by participants at the Round Table, and will be considered by the Department of Justice in the implementation of the Youth Justice Renewal Initiative.

Were present at the discussion : see attached list

A. The Role of Helping Professions in Crime Prevention

In any discussion on crime prevention, it is important to distinguish between criminal behaviours and merely anti-social ones. The latter can be addressed by providing activities for youth, or through minor enforcement by the community itself. In many instances, police should be the last recourse in dealing with the problem. However, participants agreed that police have a role to play with community associations to help identify where the problems are and to provide valuable information and insights on how the community can deal with problem behaviours.

Essential to all crime prevention programs and approaches is long-term commitment. Working with young people requires time and commitment. The individuals must get to know the youth in order to establish a trusting relationship. Relationships among the helping professions, the community, youth and others are central to the renewal of youth justice.

The availability of services for youth in difficulty is also a factor. One of the participants had a certain amount of success in dealing with a wide array of programs and services for young people, but only because he knew the specific individuals who could provide services directly and quickly. His comments highlighted the extent of the fragmentation of services and resources in the community. If you don't know whom to call, access to services is neither guaranteed nor swift.

Many or most youth programs that exist today are not youth-driven. In Medicine Hat, a totally youth-driven Youth Justice Advisory Committee was created to augment the John Howard Society Youth Justice Committee and to develop creative and meaningful consequences for youth who have offended. This group of young people came up with meaningful and stringent consequences to youth misbehaviours that have curbed recidivism (an 18 month long longitudinal study has revealed a 79% success rate at preventing recidivism.)

From a youth perspective, there's a sense that some very important partners in dealing with young people at-risk unfortunately lack credibility, i.e. schools and the police. Schools were seen as having no credibility because of their zero tolerance policies, their willingness to call police at the drop of a hat, the adversarial relationship that schools establish with "problem children", and the authoritarian role that they have traditionally adopted to keep kids in line. The same can be said about police forces. They often have good outreach programs, fine youth officers who are doing great work, but they still don't have much credibility because a cop is a cop, and he can always cart you off to jail. The reality is that the relationship between uniformed officers and young people remains one of distrust on both sides, essentially adversarial, not co-operative and certainly not equal. Power imbalance is a significant issue. Credibility concerns make it difficult for front-line community agencies to work with the police. Although there is now a move toward alternative, more flexible forms of education and new, more community-oriented policing programs, fundamental changes in institutional culture happen slowly.

A certain number of programs are being set up to alleviate this distrust between the police and young people. In P.E.I., a program has been implemented where young people spend time at the Atlantic Police Academy to understand police training and responsibilities and, in turn, police spend time with kids, in typically youth situations (malls, street games, canoe trips etc). They meet and get to know each other in a non-adversarial context and build a rapport which is required for effective community policing. This constitutes one step toward building the kind of relationship needed to understand and reach kids. It's a matter of respect, treating kids fairly and getting them to treat adults fairly. Youth also need social skills to be able to deal with adversity.

The zero tolerance policy of schools is widely seen as promoting intolerance. It was deemed interpretative and subjective, with a tendency to push small behaviour problems to an extreme point of law. If kids are to be treated fairly, there must be some definition of misbehaviour in children and youth. Cases involving aggressive and violent kids require something specific to address their behaviour, including an intervention outside of school.

In dealing with children and youth at risk, there is often a horizon problem in terms of time, jurisdiction, capacity, etc. There is a need to be able to support youth workers and access available solutions. A major challenge is to determine how the helping professions can network better, and get help to network better, across provinces, across jurisdictions, across sectors and how to find the resources to do that.

Programs and services, though important, are not what changes people. Relationships are the basis of change. That being so, it's important to recognize that this requires a re-negotiation at all levels, within and across disciplines, across organizations, as well as between youth and service providers. That means a fundamental shift in the way that we think. Youth must not be dealt with as a social problem, rather the community should deal with the social problems of youth, and the professionals who deal with youth must begin to turn a credibility issue into one which is going to enhance credibility.

There was a suggestion that all professionals who work in social services should be given several hours a week to give to the community.

If people opt for collaborative relationships, they must deal with power issues, opportunities for youth to assume some leadership roles, respect, an understanding of real issues, moving out of the usual professional/bureaucratic paradigm to the youth community/paradigm. It requires a shift in thinking, roles and expectations. The role of schools needs to be re-examined and re-negotiated so that a school's skills and resources are available to the community. Child care professionals must somehow get away from professional turf wars, break down some of the barriers and re-negotiate relationships. Governments must begin to look at crime prevention beyond a programmatic, fix-it approach. Throwing resources at a problem to develop a program doesn't mean that the community will automatically fix the problems.

Different ways of doing things are emerging. School administrators are part of police outreach programs, police officers sit on community boards of directors, and young people sit on advisory committees, boards of directors, group conferences and circles. It's a changing way of doing business, involving young people at the front end, involving all the partners. This collaboration can help young people find an activity that will motivate them not to re-offend. The only ways to achieve real change involve dialogue. There are a lot of positive things happening with partnerships and collaboration.

However, there remains a need to foster opportunities that focus not on programs or outcome measures, but at ways to invest in longer term commitments for those involved in helping young people, and more stable funding. The problem with programs is that they are run on grants, grants run out, and people who have established important relationships are gone. There is a perpetual turnover. Cuts decimate our ability to do innovative work and to be there in stable relationships with the very group we are trying to support. Also, for the workers in those programs, there is often a sense of isolation when networking is made impossible by travel costs, when people cannot attend workshops or conferences with others in their field because of costs. Nothing innovative can come from that kind of environment. People become preoccupied about with having a space out of which to operate the next day.

There was a sense that, in general, young people who represent their peers are not afforded the same respect as older, adult youth workers. They find that some doors are closed to them because they don't "fit" the image or because of who they represent, or perhaps because people don't realize the importance of having peer helpers. They stressed the need to include youth in all consultations on the new youth justice initiative for it to be meaningful to youth.

Aboriginal communities have had more experience with authoritarian, adversarial models of "help" than other communities. The over-representation of aboriginal youth in the justice system highlights the importance of reviewing the systems to ensure that they minimize the harm, that they support those who need skills, that they involve parents, relatives, the community. If they are community-based, then ensure that people in the community really have a say in decisions; develop culturally appropriate programs where a person's language is part of the program, where aboriginal workers work with aboriginal people. The key element in crime prevention is healthy families. There is a need to re-examine prevention programs and the way they include families and youth, to break down walls, be creative, and change the way we do business, build something that communities will be proud of, and that the young people can be a part of.

The notion of community was put on the table because, as one participant remarked, there is no such thing as community. Many families change their communities many times over the life of the child. Some employers move their employees every 3 to 5 years. The idea of community has been replaced by fear. We street-proof our children out of fear. We don't help someone who needs help out of fear, and we treat youth and children unfairly because of fear. A man in a store who sees a frightened child does not approach that child to be of help because we have created a culture that looks suspiciously at men with children. We also fear children, those who congregate in malls or on the street. We avoid them or harass them out of fear, but the sad message is that we don't like kids very much at all.

B. Dealing with Children under the Age of Criminal Responsibility

Very young children involved in crime require a special type of care. Police have no authority to pick up and hold children under the age of 12. Once the children are apprehended, police are mandated to turn the child over to parents or youth services forthwith. Then what is done with these children? In a very informal survey on emergency responses, agencies across the country were asked what they do with a child who has committed a very serious crime, such as murder. Results show that they respond in a cobbled-together sort of way, involving othes from the helping professions; this certainly leads to the broad community perception that they are making it up as they go along. Work needs to be done to develop a good multi-dimensional emergency response to an admittedly small number of cases so there is a credible, well thought-out means of response to crises. That is where Justice could have a national role, even a responsibility in sustaining the dialogue and discussion, developing templates and protocols.

There is very little statistical information available around what's going on with the under-12 population. Child criminality cases are very complex, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, and the system response is very uneven. A whole array of issues will determine how the case is interpreted and handled throughout the system. In cases of serious offences by children under 12, the case history of the child often reveals a lengthy, multi-problem history with interventions that go a long way back. Children with serious behaviour disorders often fall through the cracks in the system.

Participants agreed that lowering the age of criminal responsibility would be irresponsible. The recent discussion paper released on increasing the age of consent in sexual matters points to the fact that children who are at an important point of decision in their lives need greater protection, not less.

In New Brunswick, a study was done on the outcomes of guardianship which looked at kids 10 years after they were brought into the system. One interesting finding was that these young people were very clear about what happened to them in the system that they didn't like, but were equally clear on the fact that the intervention was extremely important to their lives. They only wondered why it hadn't happened sooner. Prevention starts before the age of 12 and being able to identify children at-risk is a challenge. There are few tools to assess probability of risk, or tools that are sufficiently predictive of criminal behaviour to be of any use for this age range.

Participants felt that care was needed in using assessment tools because tools label children and families. Those who interpret tests must be well trained, and not 'pseudo-professionals' in a non-profit organization. There are those that lack the training, education and community-based experience to make valid test interpretations. We worry about what services we are going to be directing children to: mental health, child welfare, justice, etc., and which system gives them a better chance. The strategy in dealing with children is important.

Another recent difference in the treatment of children is that the media blows incidents out of proportion. The media and the public all want 'the system' to deal vigorously with a single incident, here and now. Public outcry forces the adoption of short-term measures to deal with a specific incident, measures which merely suspend the mass hysteria for a period of time. At times like those, we take extreme measures for an incident that does not require extreme responses.

Ways to connect people with what is happening with children are important. When people talk about youth crime, inevitably the conversation comes down to the issue that the problem is youth, worsened by race or culture or gender. When anyone has a chance to connect with young offenders, we see movement in what they consider should be done. When we get people to reflect on their youth, to connect them back to their own youth, this produces a shift, a change in perception. Poverty, discrimination, gender, diversity, are all issues that affect our attitudes and we shouldn't forget that when thinking of prevention or dealing with children with difficulties.

Even children under 12 can exhibit violent behaviour, which warrants intervention. Intervening should not be seen as negative. Interventions mark a point of engagement. We need to keep the kids from getting into deeper difficulty. If people knew where they could help they would be very prepared to be engaged. We need to find a language that engages people, including parents. Part of the challenge is to figure out how to deal in a positive way with children, and not put labels on them. By the same token, some of the behaviour is outside the range of normal, and needs to be addressed carefully.

One of the participants talked about the difference between referral services and partnerships. Referring someone to a partner is very different than a real significant partnership, sharing resources, responsibilities and funding. We need to talk about care and common sense approaches. Some professionals say : "Let's make what makes sense here, happen." and they do. They demonstrate a true commitment and collaboration.

Community can be a six-block radius or it can be across Canada: we need to examine who the stakeholders are in terms of helping a particular youth or group of youth, and what makes sense, recognizing that what makes sense in one case or in one area may not make sense in another. We need to be careful not to generalize, but to actually take a look around and pull elements that effectively help an individual or a group.

C. Working as Partners with the Youth Justice System

Part of the answer lies in getting professionals to look at community differently, to think and act more as a community, to come to the table using some kind of framework, and saying : "We can sit down and work collaboratively, with common goals and objectives, common actions, common commitment which will help the kids." The other part of the answer lies in recognizing that the leadership should not come from the professional / bureaucratic paradigm, but from the citizen /community paradigm, where the clients engage with the professionals in determining what they see as necessary to meet their needs as they define them.

A community can mean different things and has as much to do with the commonality of interests as geographical location. As we engage communities in reintegration programs, we need to have close partnerships to make sure we don't download problems on a community that doesn't have the wherewithal to help a child. One of the challenges is to find out where the community is for each child. Research has shown that some people know only a small handful of people. They don't have a vast network. We may assume that there are always community ties, but that is not necessarily so. Community doesn't mean official membership in something. It just means whoever is meaningful in this young person's life.

One hurdle encountered in collaborative projects is for the professionals themselves to respect and accept the validity of community processes. Professionals put up barriers because programs are not structured finely enough, don't meet criteria in spite of being effective and meaningful. There needs to be recognition that the best method is the one that works. Training tools can be developed. If you listen to young people, and to their parents, the system can learn what training needs to be done. Most of the time, it is about relationships, attitudes, listening to people. If you allow systems to adjust to people and their needs, if you respect what is meaningful to them, you can get a system to work.

One of the themes that keeps coming through is that the professional /organizational paradigm is a model that needs to shift to become an something which can cross organizational and professional lines and barriers, and do things in a collective, collaborative way with other partners. It is a process. In many instances and jurisdictions, there is more downloading of problems, seeing community as a program, as a tool that can be manipulated to fix the problems. The collaboration aspect is not being approached from a partnership point of view.

Aboriginal communities have been struggling with how to establish partnerships with professionals for decades. The mentality is there, the authority is there, the mandate is there. But the focus is not there and the willingness is not there. If you want to work in a partnership with a community, you need to identify who, at the community level, will be the most helpful group or individuals to work with. You need focus, objectives, people, commitment, time and dedication, people representing people. To be successful, community/professional partnerships need the following:

• A community-up approach rather than a top-down approach.
• Sharing of resources
• Training, especially if volunteers are involved, to the concept itself and to methods and means
• A framework which stays within the community.
• Ownership, which must also remain with the community. The community has to realize what the program does for them, have a say, and authority to deal with problems.

Often, in moving from brainstorming to action, institutional barriers surface. There is a need to invest more in partnerships, to focus on our common ground rather than the philosophical differences, to build bridges between sectors of intervention.

One issue relates to federal-provincial relationships. It is important for the federal government to show leadership by getting involved through community NGO's. We need to think about what we want to do to make this a fair, safe, and better place for the kids, and be cautious of rhetoric.

In partnerships, we need to identify a vehicle for service delivery, bringing people together to start the ball rolling. Somebody has to take the leadership if action is to happen. A lot of people will want to be involved but not everyone will want to be responsible for co-ordination of action right to the end.

D. Helping the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Young People Into the Community and Next Steps

There are always difficulties with administrative measures. One of the dangerous assumptions of restorative justice is the issue of young people being restored into their communities after a custodial/treatment environment where they have responded well. One participant noted that reintegration back into the same community after custody and/or treatment can be more problematic than helpful. A key area of concern is that nothing changes in the community where the youth comes from, while the youth has changed as a result of the treatment program. It was suggested that kids should have the option to go to a different community where there are support networks in place for them, where there has been preparation ahead of time. It is also not reasonable to expect that a single mentoring relationship will allow someone to reintegrate in a healthy fashion. The reality is that often young people do not succeed when they go back into their communities. Throwing a kid back into the same family and community environment is like taking a seal out of an oil slick, cleaning it and nurturing it, then putting it back into the oil. You need some mechanism where you can place kids who need to be removed from their homes, a place where they will learn skills they will use to survive and not re-offend. There needs to be an opportunity for peer counselling during the preparation for after care phase.

The reintegration plan should be different if a young person is coming out of a secure facility or an open facility. Reintegration begins on day 1 of custody. It begins with taking a look, listening, looking at the skill sets that need to be built on. Young people in custody need to do things that they haven't had a chance to do outside (basic schooling, apprenticeship programs, work programs). They should have a chance to do some of these things before being asked to make decisions about reintegration, help, support, or even who should be at the table with them to make the decisions.

What may help, is the whole new idea of supervision provisions post-care. How these provisions will be incorporated to be positive and supportive is very important. There is the policing type of role emanating from policing conditions. Probation officers are not going to be able to do intensive supervision, their case loads won't allow it. If we are really going to talk about something supportive, then we must talk about community program people working with families, kids in the community. Advocating, supporting, helpful supervision is different from monitoring, regulating and controlling. Intensive supervision is very different from the traditional probation orders.

Aboriginal communities are, in great part, isolated from support programs. When kids are released from custody, they are returned to their community and are often the first to be blamed if anything goes wrong. It's always a brand for that individual and one of the dangers of going back to the same situation after custody and treatment.

Part of the reintegration strategy has to include a rethinking of the whole issue of publication. It is even more difficult for a young person to reintegrate successfully back into his own family and community if we have publicly labelled and shamed him. How can we reconcile the need for special protection and reintegration in a system that allows the publication of the names of young persons who offend ? Children need protection, and it is in the best interests of children that their names be kept out of the papers.

Summary

The big challenge is re-orienting the focus, redefining relationships, and not to be viewing youth as a social problem, but rather to be looking at the social problems that they encounter.

There is a need for research and discussion on collaborative and inclusive involvement, on how to make relationships count, a need for dialogue and information exchange. We need to break down the silos to get people to work together constructively. We have to look at how best to facilitate dialogue opportunities and identify the vehicles that will help us in terms of service delivery.

Community sentencing and recommendations do work but sharing networks and contacts is also important.

Strategies that involve youth working with youth include mentoring, peer support, peer counselling and it is crucial to connect with the broader constitutionality of youth to hear how these strategies affect the people they are meant to help. Have a youth sector meeting. That's where the action is. That is really where to go to get youth input into the renewal initiative.

Do not reinvent the wheel. We have what we need in the community. We just have to find out what we have and how to better utilize our resources.

Discussions today should go further, opening up the forum ever wider, with a focus on partnership discussion.

It is important to connect youth justice issues with health and well-being approaches that look at the determinance of well being for each of us as individuals, as human beings, as members of families, members of communities. All these things are interconnected.

Our after-care process still seems so incomplete. We need to re-examine the after-care role. The faith-based youth group also has a very positive contribution to make and should be considered.

Choose to believe that we are moving to a much more hopeful future that is based on community, on relationships.

Processes and strategies are the issue. However, no matter how good a job you do with the youth justice system, it is only a limited proportion of what needs to happen at the community level. We have to look at how we choose to provide for, and raise children in our society.

Report by J. Ruest
2000-01-21