Workshop at PROVIDUS, Riga (3-5 April 2013)
In April 2013, the experts’ workshop of the project “Keeping Youth Away from Crime: Searching for Best European Practices” was held in Riga, Latvia. The aim of this opening session was to discuss the project management, administrative aspects and reporting obligations of the partners.
Study visit to the University of Edinburgh (28-30 October 2013)
This event offered the opportunity to map policy, provision and practice in Scotland, to share perspectives on successes and challenges within that and to link these with experiences elsewhere.
Led by Professor Kay Tisdall of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, and Professor Sheila Riddell, of the Centre for Research in Education, Inclusion and Diversity, the programme was focused around inputs from a range of excellent speakers of international standing from the fields of criminology, education, child protection, youth work, children’s hearing system and youth justice. In addition, participants were able to hear first hand from three young people with experience of care.
Research partners then had the opportunity to visit a community project based at the Citadel Centre in Edinburgh, which works with some of the most vulnerable children and young people in the area. Over the three days of the study visit, the focus on searching for and sharing the best European practices was always at the fore, helping to shape the project as a whole as it continues to develop.
Second Workshop at PROVIDUS, Riga (28-29 November 2013)
On the 28th and 29th of November, 2013, the 2nd workshop of the European project "Keeping Youth Away from Crime: Searching for Best European Practices" which is coordinated by the Center for Public Policy Providus of Latvia was held in Riga.
All the researchers involved in the project took part of this meeting which main objectives were to: analyse the information and knowledge gained during the first workshop in April, 2013; report on and discuss the project´s progress and next step; present the 3 Latvian pilot projects (Saldus, Cesis and Madona) and share the difficulties encountered with the other partners involved in the project; present and share promising practices in some of the EU countries involved in the project: the Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia.
6th IJJO International Conference, Brussels (4 December 2014)
The objective of the full first day’s debates and workshops during the 6th IJJO International Conference was to investigate the overall orientation of juvenile justice systems, moving from an extensive approach to the analysis of more specific perspectives on prevention and diversion. In this light, the achievements of the European project ‘Keeping Youth Away from Crime: Searching for Best European Practices’ (JUST/2011/FRAC /AG/2671), which strongly focused on the advantages of a preventive and rehabilitative approach versus a purely punitive one, inspired the structure and the contents of this first day, as we believe that this perspective better represents the best interest of children in contact with the law. Partners to the project took part in the discussion during the different roundtables, in order to provide helpful and concrete insights to the different topics that were tackled, and the main outcomes of the project itself were presented in a dedicated workshop.
The participants and presentations of this workshop were:
- Ilona Kronberga, Senior Policy Analyst and project director, Centre for Public Policy PROVIDUS (Latvia): 'Early prevention around the EU'.
- Silvia Randazzo, IJJO Consultant: 'The case of Italy'.
- Mary Mitchell, Researcher, Centre for Research into Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh (Scotland): ‘Innovative Early Intervention Practice in Scotland’.
- Mathijs Euwema, Director of International Child Development Initiatives (the Netherlands). Mr. Euwema introduced ‘Promising Preventive Practices for Youth Criminality in the Netherlands’.
- Anna Markina, Faculty of Law, University of Tartu (Estonia): ‘Early Prevention – Good Practices in Estonia’.
- Asta Pikšrienė, psychologist, Children Support Centre (Lithuania): ‘Good Practices of Early Prevention in Lithuania’.
Projection of the educational film ‘Early prevention: lessons learned and yet to be learned’ took place during the workshop, which also drew the audience into an interesting debate about the subject matter.
