EP54 The Heart of Justice - Child First Approach. A conversation with Ruth Hayles

In this episode of 'Pondering Play and Therapy,' Philippa interviews Ruth Hayles, service lead for Contextual Safeguarding and Youth Justice, about her 18-year career working across children's services. Ruth shares insights on her journey, highlighting the importance of early intervention, youth justice, and building trusting relationships with children and families. She explains concepts such as early help, child-first practice, and restorative justice. Ruth also discusses innovative programs like the 'fresh air approach,' emphasising creative and therapeutic methods to engage and support youth in the justice system. The episode underscores the significance of relational practice, trauma-informed care, and community involvement in transforming the lives of vulnerable children.

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Transcript

The Heart of Justice: Child First Approaches. A conversation with Ruth Hayles

[00:00:00] 

Philippa: Welcome to this week's episode of Pondering Play and Therapy with me Philippa. And this week my guest is Ruth Hayles and she is the service lead for Contextual Safeguarding and Youth Justice. Ruth is a qualified social worker with 18 years of experience across children's services, including 10 years in management.

Her career has been based on the Isle of white, where she has. Builds extensive expertise in child protection, early help and youth justice, always with a strong focus on safeguarding and supporting children, families, and victims. So welcome Ruth to the podcast and thank you so much for being here. 

Ruth: Oh, thank you for having me.

That's 

Philippa: okay. So you've been working across children's services for 18 years. Yeah. That's a really kinda long time. And then in management, which kind of adds that [00:01:00] extra bit of stress to it. So I'm wondering like how did you begin on that journey? Was it something you always wanted to do and are you after all those periods of time and kind of in management able to keep your passion and your interests?

About children especially because I'm imagining that some of the circumstances are quite complex and quite challenging. 

Ruth: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they can be. So yeah, my, my mum was actually a social worker. And I guess you, you pick up, don't you, about your parents' experience of work and that kind of helped shape what you may be interested in.

So yeah. Qualified in 2007. And I spent four years in sort of frontline child protection team. And. I absolutely loved it. I knew that I'd done the right thing. I'd got my social work degree [00:02:00] and I felt really passionate about supporting the most vulnerable children. And then after that I moved and did four years in early help.

I really wanted to understand how, early intervention prevention diversion. How what you could do at an early stage to support children and families to prevent them becoming involved in statutory services. And I think there's so much power there. There's so much opportunity to really shape and help children and families before they reach that sort of crisis point.

And then, yeah, and then I kind of side-stepped and went into youth justice, which is where I've been for nearly the last 10 years in management position the whole time. And I absolutely love it. There is something about youth Justice that totally grips you and. It's just so interesting. [00:03:00] It's so diverse.

Every day you come up with different scenarios, different situations. You come across different children, their experiences, and I really feel that you can make a difference in that space. And you asked me about what keeps me passionate, I think. The thing is when you, work with children and you start to build relationships with them or your staff, build relationships with them, trusting relationships.

And positive stories and you, hear the difference that your staff are making Those sort of small shifts, they just become huge and you feel that you're making a tangible difference to children. And I think the whole time you feel that keeps your passion for working in this sector alive.

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 

So I just wonder, two things really just for people who are listening. One is [00:04:00] early health, because I guess youth justice is at one end and early help is at the other. So when you talk about early health, early help, what is that? That is before families really. Really end up in a system where they have got, they don't have a choice about services.

Is that, right? 

Ruth: Yeah, so early help is just about prevention really, and early support at the earliest opportunity. So it can be that they need signposting they need advice, they need low level support. Maybe they're going through a situation that they're finding challenging. Either in their own lives or in relation to bereavement, substance misuse or for struggling to support their child.

And that can be for a [00:05:00] whole number of reasons. So early help in children's social care is about offering sort of support and engagement, real relational practice in the youth justice. Service early help is about intervening at the earliest possible opportunity to prevent children coming through on statutory orders.

So it's about understanding what is driving the behavior and what can you do. To meet those child's needs, but in a pro-social way, encouraging real sort of pro-social behavior, maybe by role modeling, building Relationships. Yeah. 

Philippa: Okay. So yeah, so it's that, that fair first bit of stuff. So can we just for maybe people who aren't familiar with a youth justice service and also the Child First practice, which [00:06:00] is what you work with. Can you just tell us what that means in everyday life? 'cause I guess if you're a social worker and you listen to this, you know what it looks like on paper or in. In statutory requirements, but what is it like for you guys?

Ruth: So Youth Justice services all across the country are set up slightly differently. They're formed from the Crime and Disorder Act 98 and they are about bringing together multi-agency partners to reduce. The risk of a child offending in the first place, but also to reduce children re-offending if they have committed offenses, but also to prevent them going into the custodial estate.

So youth justice services. A multi-agency so often made up of police, probation, health, education, and multiple partners coming together in the best interest [00:07:00] of children, families, and victims. I think lots of people don't often know that. Youth Justice Services work with victims, support victims. And we actually contact all victims of children's offenses and we try to find out from those victims how they've been impacted.

By the child's behavior. And then we use that information to then inform the work that we're going to do with the child and then use that to shape sort of restorative justice work that we might complete. And that totally aligns with the Child First principles. Within Youth Justice and across Children's Social Care, child First is about seeing children as children.

And it's about understanding their needs diverting them from the stigma that can be attached with [00:08:00] being involved in statutory services with youth Justice Services and really understanding what their needs are and how we can work with them to shape the services that we deliver.

So about collaboration and that building their pro-social identity that I just. Mentioned understanding what goals they're trying to achieve through their behavior, and then what we can do to replace those needs in a real positive way. Okay. 

Philippa: You just mentioned restorative justice.

So what does that mean if you are listening? 

Ruth: What? What's that? Restorative justice. So restorative justice is one of the most amazing, powerful tools that I think exists. In the, in some of the work that we do. Restorative justice is really about understanding how the victim's been [00:09:00] impacted, how the child feels about the behavior that they displayed and what both parties would like to happen to repair the harm ultimately.

And restorative justice can take place in. Different ways. So you can have direct restorative justice, which is when you bring together the victim and the child and you talk about how they've been impacted and they have the opportunity. And they're not, they're never forced to. It's always voluntary on both sides, but they have the opportunity to provide an explanation and to give an apology if they want to.

But n not in all cases is restorative justice appropriate sometimes. But. Not in all cases is direct restorative justice appropriate. Sometimes it may be that we undertake [00:10:00] indirect restorative justice, so that can be when the child wants to write a letter of explanation and we give that to the child, to the victim.

Or it might be where the victim has specific questions that they want to. Ask the child so they can understand things like, were they deliberately targeted? How have they felt since it's happened? Is it gonna happen again? They might have certain things that they would want to ask. So it is about understanding the needs of the child, the needs of the victim.

How do we come to, a middle ground where both parties feel satisfied to a point where that they can move on with their lives. Sometimes it's about giving closure of what's gone before and allowing them both to understand what happened and be able to move on from it. 

Philippa: Does it work, Ruth?

Because I guess [00:11:00] some people might think, oh the child will just sit there and say, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it in order, just to get off or not get a sentence or not be seen in a positive light, but actually they don't really mean it or. 

Ruth: It absolutely works if both parties want it to work.

Yeah. And I, there has been some really high profile situations where restorative justice have been used with some very serious offenses. And. Both parties have been really satisfied with the outcome. It's about relational practice, about bringing together those parties and giving in them the opportunity.

I can think of an example of a really amazing piece of restorative justice that we undertook with a child. Children had caused some [00:12:00] damage to some cars, and we contacted all of the victims, and some of them were. Not bothered. They were gonna go through their insurance company, it was gonna be resolved.

Others felt really impacted by what had happened. And actually one lady came forward and said I actually would like to meet with the child or would like to understand why my car, why that day and the impact that it's had on my life. So after. Preparation, you always do a lot of preparation before a direct meeting.

But the lady actually came and met with the child and she explained that the car was used to transport her husband over to the mainland for cancer treat treatment and the child. Whose grandfather had cancer really felt huge [00:13:00] levels of remorse because there was a link there. Do you understand?

He could really feel that because he was able to relate it to a personal situation and he was angry. He said, actually, if someone had done that, and that prevented my grandad being able to access the treatment that he needed. I'd feel really, cross. And so they built this connection and they they had this amazing conversation.

And at the end of it he repaired the harm that he caused. He felt really remorseful and she wanted the best for him. She wanted him to be able to move on go on into education and build positive life for himself going forward. And I just think it's. It's about giving those opportunities to have those open conversations.

Philippa: And I'm guessing that's what kind of a good youth justice [00:14:00] intervention looks like. 

So how do you truly put the child at the center rather than the offense? Especially if the offenses are quite serious. It must be hard at times to. To see past the offense and sometimes, I don't know, I think when.

Younger children commit very serious offenses. In some ways it's more shocking, isn't it? And it's more oh my gosh, there must be something wrong with them. Because as a society, it's really difficult to think that children commit. Can. Violent or aggressive or intimidating offenses really I guess graffiti you, you accept that's a childhood behavior, but maybe assault or sexual assault or burglary or something like that's at the higher [00:15:00] end.

You really don't think about children doing that. So how do you see past the offense and can you give any examples of that?

Ruth: Yeah. I think. People are keen to focus on the age of the child. But actually their maturity age can be different and often their life experiences. We don't always understand what their life experiences have been until we get to know the child. And sometimes children have really witnessed some.

Significant things in their own lives. They've had what we call adverse childhood experiences. Is they've had experiences that impact them negatively or can impact them negatively. And Child First practice is all about focusing on the positives in their child's life. Really prioritizing their needs, [00:16:00] their identity, understanding their experiences, and focusing on the strengths.

As much as the challenges it's really important to work with the family as a whole to really understand what that child might have been through and challenge systems and processes. So you absolutely can look past the child's offense if you hold the child at the center of everything you do, and you don't make assumptions about what they've experienced and how they felt and how they feel now.

You, yeah, you absolutely can. It's about. Really focusing on that, seeing children as a child that I think often with, I know you talking about older children, it is very easy to adult children and think of them as [00:17:00] young adults when actually they are still. Minors, they are still children and we can we can really focus on them being children and that allows us to then treat them as children as well.

Some of the work, I think we'll maybe come on to discuss this in a minute, but some of the work that we do is around what we call a fresh air approach, which is activities, interactions, and roles. And that really gives us the chance to allow them to be children and play. Which I know some of your previous podcasts has very much been around play, and I think it is important that children get the opportunity to live their childhood.

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. 'cause play and creativity aren't really the things that people I. Associate with Youth Justice, do you think about, I suppose consequences and [00:18:00] punishments and actually it's gonna we need to teach you that you are not gonna do this again. And I know when I certainly when I was growing up, there was lots of things around, oh gosh, they're taking them fishing and they're taking them here and they're doing that and they should be punished.

Why is, why are they doing that? So how, does play or. The more creative therapeutic approaches support children in the youth justice system. I'm guessing it's around their own experiences of trauma or loss or that adversity that you talked about. 

Ruth: Yeah. And actually while you are doing activities with children, you can have conversations about con the consequences of behavior.

And we do have program work, but we, use that as a guide. So when we are engaging a child in a positive [00:19:00] activity, we use the program as a guide to have those. Those conversations with children to help them understand for example a, very serious conversation around the impact of knife carrying can be had in a much more relaxed environment.

You don't need to sit across a desk from a child with a load of papers using a load of jargon that they don't. Stand. You can take them fishing, you can take them skateboarding to the driving range, whatever it might be. And still have those conversations. And actually social workers, lots of social workers know that the best conversations with children happen in cars when you're not making eye contact with them and you're giving them the opportunity to, just relax and speak to you on a human level.

Yeah, so playing creativity, give children ways to engage without the [00:20:00] pressure of formal conversation. For many of the children that we work with, their early experiences of play may have been limited. They may have been unsafe, they may have been inconsistent. And that might be down to the, relationships with their parents, their caregivers attachment.

But using creativity and activities can actually lower anxiety in children. It can build trusting relationships and help build a connection with a child. And allow the space to reflect in a much more natural way. 

Philippa: Yeah. And do you when we are thinking about children in the youth justice system and that they've got this trauma and early adverse experiences, do you support them to have their [00:21:00] own therapy or whatever it is that they need to, try and.

I guess fill in some of those gaps. Make some understandings, make some links around actually this is my experience and this is my behavior. And how do they connect together and, actually this is what I'm missing and, how do I and how do we as adults help them fill those gaps in 

Ruth: Yeah, trauma. Trauma informed practice reminds us that behavior is a communication. Sometimes people might perceive an angry child or a difficult child, but actually they're trying to get across a message. Maybe not doing it in a way that people see as socially acceptable. But. They might be doing that to protect themselves, or they could be copying behaviors that they've seen while trying to make sense of a complex world [00:22:00] that we live in.

So we do, we, the staff are trauma, informed. They've all had various levels of trauma training to help them understand some of the early childhood experiences that our children that we support might have had. But we are also privileged to have a mental health practitioner within our team, which is most youth justice services do have that.

And that. Gives us that specialism. So if a child does need that therapeutic input, we can access that quite quickly. And then from having those sort of safe conversations where they can explore their feelings, that's where we start to see consistency from children where they start to engage.

Turn up. And really give of themselves [00:23:00] and will give back as well. It's a two-way relationship when you're engaging with children, isn't it? We can't expect them to be on time if we are not on time. We are role modeling, aren't we, are expectations. And so once they've had the. The opportunity to safely explore some of their experiences that then allows us to move on into their intervention plan and really work out what is it that we can do as a youth justice service.

To help and support them and ultimately prevent them from coming through to the criminal justice system in, in a sort of statutory and formal way, or ending up in the secure state. That's not what we want for any children. 

Philippa: And do you have any examples of where you've been working in this way where maybe playfully creatively [00:24:00] just engaging in that trauma informed way where it's helped to, I suppose if you're listening to something, it's nice to visualize young people or workers doing what they're doing.

Ruth: Yeah, so we've actually just won a national award. So we've won the John Hawkins Award which is given to Youth Justice Services annually for innovation and creativity. So over the summer this year we ran, a program where we opened it up to all of our children. So whether their prevention, diversion on a court order didn't matter what stage they're at in terms of their involvement with us, we actually offered all of the children the opportunity to get involved in our activities.

And so over the five weeks summer holiday, we put on six acts. Activities a [00:25:00] week which is logistically tough for a small team. But we've, we did that and we invested our time and effort in doing that because we believe that air, as I mentioned earlier, activities, interactions, and roles really makes child first.

Real. So it is very easy to put on an activity and pull together a group of children and say, off you go play football. But air is the next step to that. It's about allowing them the opportunity to have interactions with people that they wouldn't normally come into contact with, and then have a role in developing some of those activities.

And building relationships within their community. So we've had all sorts of projects and programs going on. We've done skateboarding, we've done fishing but with the skate it, it's more than just an activity. So [00:26:00] with the skateboarding, for example, the children actually designed, images that went on the bottom of their boards.

So they met with an artist and they actually spray painted and decorated the bottom of their boards and then they got to keep them. So it was, they had the opportunity to then use them out in the community. And the same with. The fishing as well. So it is not just putting on fishing, it is actually teaching the children how to gut fish.

No expert in fishing, but how to learn those sort of skills that they wouldn't normally learn. And so they interacted with the fishermen and they understood how they could. Develop those skills and then at the end of the program, they got to keep the rods. So it then gives them the opportunity to carry that activity on beyond the end of our involvement, because we definitely don't want children to become reliant on our system.

We want children to [00:27:00] learn skills and then carry those on in their community. And I'll just tell you about a photography project that we did as well, because I think it gives a bit of an example how it, is not just about children going out and taking photos. So the, we had a small group of children.

We managed to get them some cameras. They link them up with a local photographer. They learn how to use the cameras and how to really build skill when taking photographs. And for some children they wouldn't maybe not have had the opportunity to actually learn that. And it may lead on to being interested in that profession in the longer term.

But we actually then had their photos produced into a book and we put them up on display at a local cafe, and we had an open evening. And so they were invited their parents and their [00:28:00] carers to come along. We had various members of management from within children's services, children's social care to come and to make.

Children had the opportunity to really showcase what they had what they'd learned, what they, the photographs that they had taken. And one child brought her grandma along, who she was living with at the time, and you could just see on her face, she just felt so proud of the work that she had achieved.

And actually she's gone on to do photography at college now. And that's just really lovely because it just shows that. Hopefully we've given a child an opportunity and that steered them into a direction that they may not have gone down before. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. And that is lovely. And I guess for them to feel that pride in what they're doing and then have other people reflect that back to them, that's priceless in many ways, isn't it?

That's what [00:29:00] we want for, all children really, is to feel that. Adults trusted adults are noticing them and seeing their worth. And it sounds like projects like that really help them feel that other people see their worth and therefore they can see that in themselves as well.

That sounds amazing. Good. Yeah. How that was one of my questions is how does that then trans what you are doing then translate into to that the children's families, do they buy into this or do they think they need to be punished or told off or how do you engage families?

And again especially if maybe some children aren't always living in. 

In houses that are as supportive or maybe that adversity is still going on, it's still tricky. How, do you work with that as a team? 

Ruth: It's really important to see parents [00:30:00] as partners in what we're doing. We need to be working with parents and carers because.

At the end of the day, the child is gonna carry on being with them and living with them. So it's really important that they're part of our process. They understand the work that we've done, why we've done it. They're in agreement with that. And they can carry on. Message after our work's come to an end.

So we have a parenting officer within our team and the court can order parents to actually work with her, but often we engage parents voluntarily. And so we do that dual support. So the child will have their worker and the parent will have. Fair worker, and often we can see them at the same time, but separately.

And so while the child is doing an activity or having a conversation with their worker, the parent is receiving support or [00:31:00] signposting around what might be challenging for them. More often than not, parents are really pleased that we're involved. They're really happy with the service that we provide.

Some don't want us to close. They want us to carry on working with their child. And we don't really have a lot of difficulties in engaging parents. They feel. Sometimes that their parent, that their child needs support and they're pleased that people are stepping in to provide that. It might be that they feel it's not something that they're able to do for whatever reason.

Sometimes when a message comes from someone else that's not mom or dad, it's heard differently, isn't it? So that probably feeds into it. But if a parent is struggling with their own mental health or there's domestic abuse, for example, then the parenting officer is there for them. They have their own assessment, they have their [00:32:00] own plan of work.

And yeah, we try with empathy and curiosity to engage and develop a relationship with the parents alongside the child. 

Philippa: Okay. And, do you work with schools as well? 'cause I guess you've got, family is one big area that children spend a lot of time in, but school is the other. 

Ruth: Absolutely. Yeah.

Philippa: Do, you work in or 

Ruth: with schools? Yeah, we work loads for schools. So we have an education, training and employment officer within the team who's been in the team for 20 years. Very knowledgeable, has links with all the primary secondary schools, the colleges, the alternative education providers.

And yeah, I've recently taken in, taken on a governor role, a local pupil referral unit because some of the children that we support, they access the pupil referral unit. So there's a real synergy there. [00:33:00] So yeah, we work really closely with schools and we try to support them as best we can.

Yeah, we've got a good relationship with our schools. 

Philippa: That's good. 

And so in your team you've got social workers, police officers, probation, health. Do you have volunteers as well? We do, 

Ruth: yeah. Yeah. Wow. We do have volunteers. Yeah. So we've got about six volunteers with our team. What do they do? They do two things.

If a child is on a referral order, which is a court order they, what does 

Philippa: that mean? So what does a referral order mean? So the court's done it but what does it mean? 

Ruth: So it basically means that a child is mandated to work with us. Okay. And so they don't 

Philippa: have a choice. The court, the George, the magistrate said you have to do so many sessions, so many hours with the youth [00:34:00] service.

Yeah. Yeah. And so they have to come and if they don't come, they would be breaking a court order and they could then get. A much more serious sentence. Is that right? 

Ruth: That's exactly right. Yeah. Okay. So referral order is between three and 12 months. Okay. And so the child will be mandated to work with us and under the referral order they have to have a panel meeting.

And at the panel meeting the guidance is that you have two members of the community there. That actually chair the panel and that's where our volunteers come in. So our volunteers, they work in pairs. They will, arrange the panel meeting and the child will come with the parent, the youth justice officer, the restorative justice officer, and they'll come together with the volunteers who will chair that meeting.

And in that meeting they will agree what the child is going to do during that period of [00:35:00] time. So your. You are building a relationship, understanding having read the child's assessment and report, what sort of things might help this child? What can we do to support the child? Support the family and to yeah, build pro-social identity.

So they draw up a contract with the child and both parties sign it. So the volunteers sign it, the Youth Justice Service sign it. The child and parent signs it and it's legally binding. And so they, they have to do the things that are written onto their contract. 

Philippa: So if it were, if you were a social worker, it'd be like a care plan.

So it's, this is how we're gonna treat it. If you're an education worker, it'd be like your Alpha Health and Education plan. It's the plan that says these are the child's needs within this. This arena, and this is how, what the child is gonna do in order to meet those needs, this is what parents are gonna do [00:36:00] and this is what the, Youth Justice Service is gonna do.

And so it gives a clear plan about how that support is gonna look the responsibilities of each person over the period of time. Exactly that. 

Ruth: Yeah, Okay. Our volunteers also engage with reparation. So reparation means repairing the harm so that I, explained earlier that, that it can be done by the direct reparation, indirect reparation.

You can also have community reparation, so that will be when a child gives back to their community. That can take place in a whole range of ways. Only last week a child was baking cakes and then we went and gave that to the local hospice. It can be sanding and [00:37:00] painting benches within the.

Community of which their offense occurred. It can be all sorts of things that can be done within the community space. But in order to facilitate that community reparation, our volunteers will come along and support with those sessions. And they don't stand and give order and watch over the children.

They fully engage with the child. They'll do the reparation alongside the child, and if the child is on a referral order. Is part of that contract, we would try to make sure that the volunteers are the same volunteers, because they'll see them at the panel meeting and then they'll see them at their reparation as well, because that helps keep that continuity for the child.

Philippa: So I guess it's just if you're at home. And your your kid hits you or hits his sibling, then you might say, actually [00:38:00] oh such and such is feeling unkind now. So let's go and take them a cookie and, or let's let them play with your game. It's that kind of repair, that rupture and repair, but on a bigger thing with it within a community it's that kind of, we've ruptured this relationship somehow with our community and now we're gonna.

Do something that repairs it by standing down benches, baking cookies for hospice, what litter picking, but it's that helping my understanding of that then would be it's about helping the young person or the child be able to feel like they've got some efficacy or some agency in being able to repair things and being able to make things better rather than shaming them.

'cause I guess, old school justice would be about you've, [00:39:00] done this bad thing and you are a bad person, and therefore, and it creates all this shame within a child. Yeah. Where it sounds like reparation is about saying your action was not okay. It hurt and upset somebody or a community. But actually you can make that better because actually you are a good person.

The stuff that's really nice and kind and lovely about you. So let's show you how you do this differently. Would that be? 

Ruth: Yeah, absolutely. So we have done so much, many different reparation projects across the isle of what I it's really extensive. We've been involved with so many local service.

Providers where the children have been in and cleaned out animals fed the animals, been out with a lifeboat, fire and rescue English heritage places [00:40:00] where they've been in and painted some of the spaces there. And one of the things that we've been working on as a service recently is about improving this.

Spaces in which we see the children. So really making our spaces feel more comfortable. And recently we've been involved in an art project which has. Been in the custody cell. So underneath the court there is a cell where where children are taken and will wait before their court hearing if they're being produced.

And as you can imagine, that is not a environment. Set up for a child. So we actually commissioned an artist to work with a group of children that we support and the children chose the artist to start with. So we Dragon STEM style, got artists in and they [00:41:00] described to the children what ideas they had, how they might engage them.

And the children actually chose, yeah, we wanna work with this artist. We think that they're gonna be the one that we could work with best. So we commissioned that artist and over a period of weeks the children actually designed a project called Windows to Wellness, and they deliberately called it that because the cell itself has no windows in.

Oh, okay. And they wanted to create the image of windows within the, in the custody cell. And so they designed this beautiful wi artwork which has like a giant window, a small window, and two port holes. And if you look through the window, they're framed windows. And if you look through them, they've got like dolphins.

One of them is a space. One of them is a sea theme. One of them is a space theme. The other [00:42:00] ones are like parks and forests and there's squirrels and all sorts of beautifully painted butterflies and all sorts of things. And the children that designed those, that was their reparation project.

So they are giving back to the community because other children will sit in that. Space and hopefully feel that it's been designed by children and it is to try and make that environment just feel that little bit more comfortable. And we've done a similar, very similar projects with the room in which we have here in county hall.

We've done a similar project with the police station. And we've done another project with our youth court office where we seal. See children that come in for court hearings. So we've tried really hard to adapt the spaces, but using that as part of reparation projects so that the children are contributing to their [00:43:00] community and feeling that they can paint walls, build tables, design staff, and they can make environments better for other children that will come after them.

And I'm 

Philippa: guessing this is about helping to see past the offense because I guess so you I guess some people think, actually you would want them to be scared, sat in a cell so they don't do it again. But I suppose I'm wondering you talked earlier about actually lots of the behaviors or about.

Other stuff really about what's going on, about their early life trauma or adversity. So these projects or making these spaces nice, giving them these experiences is helping the child one, see past the offense. That they're more than, they're more than this. They're all these things, but also about giving them.[00:44:00] 

The more than for life that you don't have to stay in this pattern of behavior that you can do and be something different than the kid who nicks sweets from Tesco or the kid who whatever, it does. I'm guessing that's why, these are so important really. 

Ruth: Yeah we, don't want children to be scared.

There's lots of research that shows that old style approach, taking children to look round the secure state, taking children and locking them in cells to see what that might feel like is actually really damaging. We want children to feel professional love, relentless commitment to them.

There's no benefit to making children feel scared. And it's just actually damages the neuro pathways. We want them to know that [00:45:00] they might have made a poor choice. They might not have the support that they need at home, but us as their corporate parent can set positive examples. We can be there for them.

We will turn up, we will show up. We will relentlessly be there for their appointments. We had a child last week who we went to see who told my member of staff where to go and that they weren't gonna see them. And my member of staff then sat and recorded a video and sent that to mum, and mum then played that.

And then we turn up the next week and we say to this child. We are not going away. We are actually here to support you. You don't need to be scared of us. We, want to find out and understand what life is like for you. And that keep turning up because they don't [00:46:00] often, children don't have that in their lives.

They have chil, they have, maybe professionals or parents or caregivers that give up that don't have that commitment to them. And we are not prepared to be one of those people. We won't give up. We will keep trying. And we've, that approach has seen some really successful results. We've, some of our children, we've had children that absolutely don't want to engage that by the end of their program, actually want to stay open on voluntary programs.

So we have to be there for children, don't we? Because they're the ones that are c carrying things forward. They're the ones that are gonna be there for our future. If we don't get it right for them, then they're not gonna get it right for us when they're the ones looking after us. Yeah. 

Philippa: Yeah. So would you say that is one of the, the most important things, is that predictability, that consistency, that kind of just being that safe [00:47:00] adult that says.

We've got you. We see you. 'cause I guess that's really important, isn't it? Is that we see you and we've got you and we see all of you. So we see the stuff that's tricky. We see the stuff that actually we don't agree with, but we also see all this other stuff about you and we are gonna keep showing. Even if you just keep showing us or trying to show us the, things that you think we're gonna push away.

'cause often that's what happens, isn't it? Is that the they're telling you where to go or the the negative behavior. Can be just a communication that says, I'm really scared you're gonna let me down. Yeah. I'm really scared because actually having relationships for me means that people hurt me, or I just get to like it and then you'll disappear like everybody else in my life.

So I'm just not gonna invest. 

Ruth: Yeah many children [00:48:00] face huge barriers long before they come to Youth Justice Service and have involvement with us, whether that's poverty, school exclusion, unmet, neurodiversity needs or exploitation can be whole host of things. And systems can feel overwhelming and sometimes punitive.

And that, I think, can lead to children disengaging. But that relational play, thought, playful, therapeutic approach often softens the edges of systems. And it gives children moments of safety, humor, connection. And I, wish people understood that. They are children first. They may be scared, they may be overwhelmed.

They may be carrying burdens bigger than their behavior suggests sometimes. But meaningful change, it comes from relationships, not from sanction. It really [00:49:00] comes from stability, belief. Feeling genuinely seen. And when a child trusts an adult to not give up on them, that's when the change becomes pos possible.

And yeah, sometimes can be very fast. Once you've built that relationship, surprisingly, 

Philippa: and I guess it's then, hard once it begins to end, because if you've built this with them and then you. You then have to say, okay, now our time together is done. I know in lots of the work I do I talk with children and young people about, it's been, it's a happy, sad, yeah. It's sad that we, have to end, but I'm really happy that you don't need me anymore. 

Ruth: Yeah. We always create exit strategies with our children, and we try to actually do that from the midway point. So we're starting to think about when you [00:50:00] exit our service, what will that look like? Who will be there to support you?

How can they carry on some of the work? What skills have you. Built during your time with us that you can continue and you can carry on your own. So we try to see children out and about in their community, in the local centers. And part of the reason for that is that they have built a connection with those centers and they feel that it's not so scary then to step in and go into a youth group or whatever the provision might be, because they've already been in that space before.

They've already met the worker that. That's gonna be there when they do go in. So we try to build connection within their community so that when we step away, it doesn't feel painful. It doesn't feel rejection. It's always planned for. 

Philippa: Yeah. Yeah. So as we just come to an end, I just, I suppose I have one final question about hope, really?[00:51:00] 

So do you have hope about how. The youth justice system is gonna look in the future. 

Ruth: That's a big question. Yeah I think Youth Justice Services are achieving amazing things across the country. And I just hope that they all continue to stay focused on the child not be driven by police outcomes data.

Whatever it might be. That is the focus of the moment. I think if we keep the child front and center to what we're doing and we keep victims front and center as well. So we have a saying in our team, which is child first, victim foremost. And that's because I think the needs of both are equally important.

So I think, yeah, we've just gotta keep doing. Doing what we're [00:52:00] doing and moving forward to just encourage other agencies to adopt some of the approaches that are happening within the youth justice sector because the, outcomes from them are really positive. 

Philippa: Yeah, because they, 'cause I imagine.

It's a big system, isn't it? That's set in a very clear way and just getting, and I imagine murals on walls in, in holding cells or custody suites. That in itself can be really tricky, can't it? Going through all the layers of bureau Bureaucracy, sorry, I can't even say that word. That you need to get those things done, but those are such slow moving. Do you think there's, do you think there's momentum behind it? [00:53:00] 

Ruth: It is a really broad system, but again, if we do it because we are doing it for children, you can drive things forward at pace.

I think, yeah, we just have to continue to work together as partners, don't we? And. More heads are better than one. So I think if you're doing things joint up with other agencies and you're keeping the child in the center, then you can only achieve positive things. Yeah. 

Philippa: That's, so yeah, I think that's a really nice place to end really just thinking about that child-centered approach and holding them and the victims in a, in the front of our mind and thinking about how do we really help people to be a whole, connected and seen, so that's really lovely. Thank you so [00:54:00] much for your time, Ruth. That's been so super interesting. You're welcome. Thank you very much. 

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