This morning, Minister of State with responsibility for Youth Justice, James Browne TD, met with the University of Limerick ‘REPPP’ team, along with Youth Justice Workers from the Garda Youth Diversions Projects, to discuss their participation in an ongoing Action Research Project.
The Action Research Project is led by REPPP (pronounced “rep”), a research partnership with the University of Limerick, who work with local projects alongside a dedicated Best Practice Development Team. The team provides guidance, technical support and professional development support to GYDP Youth Justice Workers, forming the essential front-line of engagement with young people
Following the meeting, Minister Browne said,
“This meeting provided a valuable opportunity to discuss my most immediate priority to be contained in the upcoming Youth Justice Strategy. Enhancing our engagement with children and young people, particularly those who are identified as most at risk of involvement in criminal activity, is critically important in diverting them from a life of crime.
“The new Youth Justice Strategy will look to enhance this early engagement and intervention, principally by enhancing the services available through the existing 105 Garda Youth Diversion Projects, to ensure a focus on early intervention, family support and work with harder-to-engage young people, and by extending the service so that it is available throughout the State.”
Based on initial outcomes from the Action Research Project, and evaluations of a number of pilot projects, it is intended to develop an enhanced GYDP service offering, to provide in particular:
- family support
- engagement with younger children (8-11) years
- early intervention and engagement with more challenging children and young people, whose needs may be too complex for other youth and family services
Note for Editors
Background to the Action Research Project
The Department has worked with the University of Limerick to implement an Action Research Project (ARP) which will work with 16 selected projects. The objective is to move beyond the testimonial and anecdotal evidence we have that projects work well and provide a good service, to capture precisely what specific interventions work best, document this evidence, and roll the learning from this out across all the projects over a number of years. The actions will include
- examination of what makes for a successful relationship between a young participant and a Youth Justice Worker (success being understood as facilitation of real change in the young person’s attitudes and life that would not otherwise happen);
- articulating the contribution that a GYDP makes in tackling crime in a community; and
- assessment of the contribution that ‘up-stream’ agencies and interventions can make to crime reduction and making appropriate recommendations.
Oversight of the ARP is by UL REPPP, the field research is being conducted by GYDP project staff who are part of an annual Masters programme, each giving specific research output that feeds into the overall ARP.
The ARP looks at GYDPs as a social and youth policy intervention, as much as being part of the criminal justice system, and seeking synergies with other youth and family support services is a key concern.