The varying levels of implementation of international standards concerning children in conflict with the law have become a problem inherent in the field of Juvenile Justice, due to various reasons, with a lack of specific training in Juvenile Justice at both the EU, and the local level, being key. Current training methods in how Juvenile Justice stakeholders communicate with children in conflict with the law is somewhat lacking. Therefore, the project, elaborated by International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO) ‘Improving Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe: Training for Professionals’ intends to provide information, knowledge and training to juvenile justice national authorities and staff working with juvenile offenders at a European level, in order to promote a better implementation of international standards concerning children in conflict with the law. It will involve the IJJO think tank and formal network: the European Council of Juvenile Justice.
The project will focus on improving juvenile justice national systems and exchanging promising practices concerning juvenile offenders subject to sanctions or measures.
The project will consist of training modules on the creation on Child Friendly justice and will follow a two part approach:
- Training of trainers (national Juvenile Justice stakeholders).
- National interdisciplinary workshops on child-friendly justice (for defender, social, health, care professionals, penitentiary staff, etc).
The training of trainers will focus on capacity building for juvenile justice stakeholders and the content of national workshops will follow the IJJO White Paper recommendations, in particular how and why assess the need of children in conflict with the law deprived of liberty with a special interest in promoting alternative measures and restorative approaches. The accent will be given to the importance of developing individualised programs for children in conflict with the law, and developing specific knowledge for professionals concerning children rights, communication with children and preparation to the release.
The main objective of the project ‘Improving Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe: Training for Professionals’ is to improve the EU youth justice systems and to understand where they can be made more efficient and more child-friendly, focusing on a better implementation of the Guidelines of the Council of Europe on Child Friendly Justice and international standards.
- Creation of a training toolkit and a manual drafted by a group of experts on juvenile justice and children´s rights. A focus-group will also be organised with children in conflict with the law in order to identify their needs and create case-management stories (with a particular focus on examples concerning the right to be heard).The training toolkit is destined for trainers and the manual will be disseminated during national workshops and will be translated in different languages.Both the training toolkit and the manual will include the main concepts in juvenile justice and will consist of a selection of promising practices that will be identified as possible models of action.
- Training sessions in Brussels for project partners on child-friendly justice. This session will consist of “training of trainers” concerning techniques (advocacy, capacity-building, etc.) to implement the toolkit and the manual at national level.
- National workshops organised by project partners for practitioners and professionals dealing with children in residential care or detention. These workshops will focus on the priorities developed in the IJJO White paper (prevention, diversion, community sanctions and detention as last resort) respecting the principles of interdisciplinarity and child participation.
- Evaluation of the training sessions and adaptation of the toolkit and the manual on an online course through the IJJO e-learning Platform (International School of Juvenile Justice).
- Final conference in Brussels to present the results of the project.
Coordinator: International Juvenile Justice Observatory (Belgium)
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (Vienna, Austria)
Hope for Children - UNCR Policy Centre (Cyprus)
Rubikon Centrum (Czech Republic)
Association Diagrama (France)
Greek Ministry of Justice (Greece)
Istituto Don Calabria (Italy)
Providus Center (Latvia)
Portuguese Ministry of Justice (Portugal)
Fundación Diagrama (Spain)
Include Youth (N.I., United Kingdom)
Finish Forum for Mediation (Finland)
The University of Cork (Ireland)