View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Digital Education Resource Archive Youth Justice Board Family Group Conferencing in Youth Inclusion and Support Panels: Empowering Families and Preventing Crime and Antisocial Behaviour? Janet Walker, Christine Thompson, Graeme Wilson and Karen Laing with Mike Coombes and Simon Raybould Contents Preface 5 The Research Task 5 The Research Team 6 Acknowledgements 6 This Report 8 Addendum 9 Executive Summary 10 Introduction 10 The Research Task 11 Integrating Family Group Conferencing Within the YISPs 13 Empowering Families 13 Promoting Restorative Justice 15 Implementing Family Plans 15 Making a Difference 16 The Potential for Enhancing YISP Practice: Conclusions and Recommendations 18 1 Supporting Families and Preventing Crime 23 The Policy Context within which YISPs Were Established 23 Prevention and Early Intervention 24 The Family Group Conferencing Process 29 2 Evaluating the Enhanced Effectiveness of YISPs 34 The National Evaluation of YISPs 34 Our Approach to the Evaluation of Family Group Conferencing 35 The Scoping Study 36 Revised Research Objectives 38 Research Methods 39 Collection and Analysis of Baseline Quantitative Micro-level Data 40 Survey Data 43 Qualitative Data Sets 45 Exploring Effectiveness 47 Contextualisation 49 3 Integrating Family Group Conferencing within the YISPs 51 The Pilots 51 The YISP Panels 56 The Relationship Between Family Group Conferences and YISP Panels 63 An Integrated Approach 65 Implementing FGC 66 2 Referrals to the Pilots and to Family Group Conferencing 71 Getting Involved with the YISP: Parents’ Perceptions 73 Children’s Perceptions Concerning Referral to a YISP 77 Going to a Family Group Conference 78 Linking FGC into the YISP Process: Summary of Key Findings 79 4 Empowering Families 81 Family Group Conferences: Principles and Characteristics 81 Setting Up Family Group Conferences in the YISPs 82 Preparing Other Family Members and Friends 90 Deciding Who Attends the Conference 94 Structuring the Family Group Conference 95 Reactions after the Family Group Conference 107 The Use of Advocates 110 Empowerment and Participation 112 The Importance of Family Empowerment 114 Meeting the Challenges 115 The Views of Practitioners 117 Striking the Right Balance 118 5 Promoting restorative justice 119 Best Practice in Restorative Justice 121 Previous Research Evidence 122 The Evidence from the FGC/YISP Pilots 124 Our Observations on Restorative Conferences in the YISPs 131 Developing Restorative Justice 132 6 Developing and Implementing Family Plans 134 Initial Satisfaction with the Plan 135 Implementing Family Plans 136 Reflections 6–9 Months after the Family Group Conference 144 Children’s Perceptions of the Family Plan 145 Developing Tailored Packages of Support 147 Being SMART 153 Encouraging Change 154 7 Making a Difference: Indicators of Change 157 Previous Findings Relating to the Effectiveness of YISPs 158 YISP Interventions 160 Modelling Using the MIS Data Sets 163 Follow-up Survey Questionnaires 173 The Evidence from Scale Measures 176 Exploring the Effectiveness of FGC – Parents’ Perceptions 178 Children’s Perceptions of Impact 184 Understanding Families’ Responses 186 3 Professional Perspectives 187 Longer-term Achievements 192 Drawing the Evidence Together 194 8 The Potential for Enhancing YISP Practice 197 Issues Relating to the Implementation of FGC 198 Issues Relating to FGC Processes 204 Issues Relating to the Outcomes Associated with FGC 212 Promoting Promising Practice 214 Looking Ahead 216 References 218 Appendix 1: Data obtained for the evaluation 222 Appendix 2: Profiles of the children in the interview sample 241 4 Preface The Research Task Towards the end of 2004, we were selected by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) to conduct an evaluation in five areas of England and Wales in which the Youth Inclusion and Support Panels (YISPs) had successfully bid to pilot the integration of family group conferencing (FGC) within YISP processes. The evaluation, which began in February 2005, was designed to extend and build on our national evaluation of thirteen pilot YISPs, the results of which were published in 2007. We developed a research design and research methods which mirrored as closely as possible those used in the 2007 national evaluation in order to be able to map the new data about FGC on to those obtained during the national evaluation. The nature of the pilots prevented us from undertaking a rigorous study using methods such as random-controlled trials, nor were we able to secure good enough before-and-after FGC data to provide comparison of different processes. We adopted an action research approach which combined quantitative and qualitative methods and which enabled us to work closely with our sponsors at the YJB and with the pilots throughout the evaluation. We presented a detailed report of the scoping phase of the evaluation in May 2005, and submitted regular progress and interim reports to the YJB thereafter. In addition, we provided feedback to the pilots at regular meetings convened by the YJB. During these we discussed the challenges we faced in collecting adequate case-level data, and the pilots shared the difficulties they faced locally in implementing FGC and meeting the targets set by the YJB. We were privileged to share the learning journey which the pilots embarked on in 2004 and to observe the tensions and transitions they experienced. In so doing, we were able to enhance our own understanding of the FGC and YISP processes in each pilot and to discern similarities and differences between them. Inevitably, an evaluation of a new initiative is able to collect a good deal of information about processes and rather less about the outcomes. The formative evaluation provides insights which add to the evidence base about the potential of FGC to enhance YISP practice and points to the issues which need to be considered in any developments in FGC with vulnerable young people at risk of offending and antisocial behaviour. While our summative evaluation must be treated with appropriate caution, it raises important issues in respect of the potential of FGC to enhance outcomes. The study posed a number of challenges, not least that of managing diverse and often incomplete data sets. Our ability to undertake all the planned analyses was compromised by a lack of robust data on all the variables we had originally specified, but we believe that the study is inevitably richer for the breadth of understanding we have been able to derive from the data available to us. 5 The Research Team The evaluation of FGC drew on the expertise of key members of a multi- disciplinary research team from Newcastle University which was also evaluating the thirteen pilot YISPs. The study was co-ordinated initially within the Newcastle Centre for Family Studies (NCFS) under the direction of Professor Janet Walker, and later transferred to the Institute of Health and Society (IHS) when Professor Walker moved into the Institute in summer 2007. Karen Laing was responsible for profiling the case-study areas and analysing data relating to both YISP and FGC cases in the pilot areas, and Dr Christine Thompson and Dr Graeme Wilson were responsible for undertaking the qualitative enquiries and for interviewing children, young people, families, and their keyworkers and YISP and FGC staff in the case-study areas. All three facilitated the focus groups at the end of the evaluation. Professor Mike Coombes and Dr Simon Raybould, in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, orchestrated the management and analyses of the quantitative data returned by the pilots, and considered the generalisability of the findings. Together with the NCFS team, they contributed to the overall design of the evaluation, modifying and refocusing it as the pilots developed their practice and adopted new ways of recording case-level data. In early 2006, Dr Stephen Parkin joined the research team. He contributed to the qualitative elements of the study, conducted interviews with family members, and undertook a preliminary literature review and a preliminary analysis of observational and interview data. He left the team in August 2006 to pursue his academic studies. We offer him our thanks for the important contributions he made while he was an integral member of the research team. Throughout our evaluation we were supported in our work by Janette Pounder and Jane Tilbrook, who provided administrative oversight and secretarial support, and also transcribed many interviews. They prepared all our reports to the YJB and then painstakingly typed successive drafts of the final report. Michael Ayton, our copy editor, has worked closely with us to ensure that our outputs are both accessible and meaningful. We offer our thanks to all of them. Acknowledgements An evaluation such as this cannot be completed without the co-operation and help of many people. We made many demands on YISP pilot staff and we know that managing the requirements of a national evaluation at the same time as developing a new and complex initiative is far from easy. Staff in all the pilots were enormously helpful and were willing to respond to our unending requests. We are enormously grateful to everyone in all the pilot YISPs for staying cheerful and working all hours to enable us to complete our data collection. We are especially grateful to FGC co-ordinators and facilitators and to YISP keyworkers for introducing the research to children and families and for securing their willingness to participate in the study. Without their help we would not have been able to hear and report the views of the children and families who experienced FGC as part of their YISP intervention. They also agreed to us observing YISP panels and family group conferences, thus giving us invaluable insights into the world of FGC as it is experienced by professionals and family 6 members. Our heartfelt thanks go to all the YISP and FGC staff for making this evaluation possible.