The Children & Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) collaborates with organisations, charities, and the Scottish Government to support justice work that is undertaken for children and young people in Scotland. Often, we focus on children and young people who come into contact with the criminal justice sector (police, courts, secure centres, etc.), but we also work with victims of crime and advocate for the rights of children and young people.
We believe that good work in this area recognises the valuable ideas, thoughts, and knowledge that children and young people have to offer. CYCJ is always trying to learn and build on its work, especially when it comes to children and young people’s participation. Importantly we would like to ask children and young people what issues are important to them, as well as what they think good participation and collaboration with CYCJ would look like.
CYCJ understands that it’s sometimes hard to know what good work is. So, we ask questions and do research to determine what problems exist and what good means. Because CYCJ believes in participation, we would like to know what topics and questions Children and young people would like CYCJ to think about.
Over the next few months, we are looking to engage with a diverse range of children and young people to ask their opinions. Before our visit, we will give all the groups an information sheet with data about crime and justice systems in Scotland, examples of participation with children and young people and examples of youth-led research to consider.
We would like to ask your group if they would be willing to meet us to discuss the issues mentioned above. While this email has been directed to the group leaders/facilitators, we encourage you to forward it to the children and young people in your group and ask them if they are willing to meet us.
Each session would last for about 2 hours. The sessions are designed to be engaging, with different ways to contribute. There will be a break in the middle and we can provide some refreshments. To compensate children and young people for their time and knowledge, we can offer each participant a £25 gift voucher.
We will meet as many groups as possible, but the timeframe is limited, so we have also created a survey which will be available to those we cannot meet in person. Each person who enters the survey will be entered into a prize draw.
These group sessions are important to help ensure that we are doing participation work in the best way possible and to make sure that children and young people have a say in the questions we ask and the research we pursue. Your time and engagement would be greatly appreciated.
If your group would like to take part in either the group work or survey, please contact us at cycj-youth-research@strath.ac.uk for more information.