Life is hard in general, regardless of your background…
…For me, social work breathing down my neck, being in a care home, being homeless, experiencing mental health issues, as well as getting in trouble with police, made it extra hard. When I was rebellious, this was a way of preventing me from feeling vulnerable and from feeling emotions which inevitably caused negative effects throughout […]
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Our wakeup call: A disappointing increase in offence referrals
We felt the need to write this blog following the publication of the Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration (SCRA) Annual Statistics, which show an increase in the number of offence referrals made for young people. Rather than use the old clichéd disclaimer about statistics, let’s say that statistics paint a picture, and it is for us […]
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Critical Junctures
The support I received as a looked after child at home was minimal. I was visited by a community police officer, an earnest young man with no training around youth work, who told me to behave myself once a week for a month or so. On reflection, this may have had a positive impact had […]
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Pink socks
I hate personal disclosures, which is rather unfortunate in this field of work, as we all need them. They remind me of pink socks; a constant reminder of that one time you accidently let a red sock sneak into the washing machine with your white ones. This doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t […]
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Dual Diagnosis in Scottish prisons
According to statistics published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, mental health issues affect as many as 9 out of 10 prisoners. The Hughes Report quotes that 70% of all prisoners have combined mental health and substance misuse problems, meaning that 70% of prisoners suffer from ‘dual diagnosis’. Dual diagnosis is the combination of a […]
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Blue Sky Thinking
In whichever situation you work as a practitioner, when sitting across from a young person who is involved in crime, what are you thinking? Often, our heads are filled up with words such as crime, offender, recidivism, risk, NEET, ACE, ASSET etc. When considering young people’s futures, we are often limited to thinking of the […]
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A Walk Down Their Street
For those of you who do not know about ‘The Street’, then all I can say is you are missing out, and you need to get that sorted. I had been hoping for an opportunity to visit the Street project since I first heard about it three years ago, and a few weeks ago I […]
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Look, Listen
The last few years have been a year of firsts. The first baby boxes. The first independent Root & Branch review of our care system. We’re the first country to ban the physical punishment of our children. Latterly, the world’s first Year of Young People. I also want this year to have another first. The […]
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Pigeonholing
Article 12 of the UNCRC states that nation states have a duty to listen to the views of young people, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender or any other characteristic. In this blog, Lizzie Coutts of Positive Prison? Positive Futures talks about her involvement in a project which aims to support young people with experience of […]
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