KeyRing is currently working on a project funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust. It is a part of their ‘Transition to Adulthood’ (or T2A) programme that looks to develop ways to make criminal justice interventions with young adults as effective as possible.
The Transition to Adulthood programme currently has very little information about the experiences and needs of young people with Learning Disabilities or Autism in the Criminal Justice System so we want to provide this input in their programme. We would like to speak to you about your experiences of being in the Criminal Justice System and about making the transition from youth services to adult services in the criminal justice system and the social care system.
You do not need to have a diagnosis of a learning disability or autism, you just need to feel that you experience difficulties such as communicating or processing information that have an effect on your ability to cope with, understand and navigate the criminal justice system.
If you are interested, the first thing that we will do is to arrange to have a brief chat by telephone or Zoom about your involvement in the Criminal Justice System. This will look at whether you have been in Police Custody, to Court, to a Young Offenders Institution, to Prison, under the Youth Offending Team, or had to see a Probation Officer for example.
This will give us an idea of the things that you might like to talk about and allow us to tell you more about our project.
If you are still interested in taking part, we will arrange to have another chat where you can tell us more of your story. This will look in more depth at your experiences at different points in the Criminal Justice System, what you think should have been done differently and what you think would help other young people if they are in the same position. We will not ask you to talk in depth about the offence that you were accused of unless you want to and you think that it is relevant to what happened.
If you want to take part in further parts of the project we will be arranging some bigger focus groups. These might be via Zoom in the near future, but we hope that by the end of the project in February 2022 (next year) that we will have been able to meet at least once or twice face-to-face. These groups will explore wider issues for young people with a learning disability or autism in the criminal justice system. You can just take part in the one-to-one discussions and decide later if you want to join the bigger group, you do not have to commit to anything now.
For more information or to take part contact Hugh Asher on 07908 101 861 or at hugh.asher@keyring.org.