Vince Mercer

1
Vince Mercer

• AIM Project www.aimproject.org
• vincemercer_at_hotmail. co.uk

2
Are we just flying a kite???
3
What is RJ good at???

• Working with family and yp at an appropriate
  level
• Not being confrontational
• Seeing the yp as a person not a label
• Building social competence and emotional literacy
• Recognising strength and resilience

4
Opportunities for linkages

• Changing state of knowledge on adolescent sexual
  offending
• Growing confidence of RJ and mainstreamed into
  CJS via ROs
• Strengths based approach which puts the focus
  upon resilience factors
• Importance of engaging family
• Increasing recognition of engaging with victim??

5
(No Transcript)
6
Resilience Model

• Search for factors (resources/strengths) that may
  help overcome the trauma
• Resources are found within families, schools,
  communities, peer groups and any positive setting
  in which a child spends time connections to
  positive people and a sense of belonging

7
Resilience characteristics and Recovery

• Being able to share problems with others
• Being able to put your experience into a broader
  perspective
• Using your experience to gain insight and
  awareness
• Being able to find acceptable answers to why
  questions or, in some cases, to stop asking the
  questions, because there are no answers
• Not feeling personally responsible for what
  happened and being able to locate blame
  appropriately
• Being able to place reactions where they belong-
  that is, in the incident that caused them, rather
  than internalise them
• Adapted from Dr. D Meichenbaum

8
Background. New Zealand in the 1980s

• Alienation of indigenous peoples from the CJS and
  Care system
• Community Groups feeling disempowered
• High levels of young black men in care and
  custody
• Maori criticism that no community involvement in
  decision making about their young people

• The models flexibility allows it to be amended
  and adapted to different circumstances
• Not culturally bound, speaks to universal
  concerns Service user engagement, consumerists
  approaches, partnership work, professional
  accountability
• Used in Child Welfare as well as Criminal justice
  context

9
FGMs are essentially

• A planning process

• Potentially a restorative process

10
(No Transcript)
11
Approaches to planning

• Imposition
• Professionals know best
• Assumptions made
• Focus on deficit and weakness
• Non accountable
• Disregard positive networks
• Disrespectful

• Involvement
• Professional power balanced
• Assumptions challenged
• Focus on strength
• Accountable
• Engage positive networks
• Respectful

12
Family Group Meetings Process
Referral
Period of preparation with
Victim and supporters(if involved)
Professionals
Young person and family

• FGM
• Victim Offender dialogue(if present)
• Information giving by professionals
• Private planning time
• FGM reconvenes to agree plan

13
Why FGMs?

• They are a proven way of engaging yp and familys
  in addressing difficult problems
• They recognise the past behaviour but like
  solution focussed work they are future
  orientated
• They identify and build upon family and community
  strengths
• They hold yp accountable in a meaningful way
• They deliver to victims (if appropriate)

14
Key Principles of FGMs

• The family had strength and resources which can
  be harnessed
• Family/community culture to be respected
• Redress the balance of power between family and
  professional increase professional
  accountability
• Emphasis upon process as much as task
• Plans must be resourced

15
The benefits of the FGM approach

• Restoratively links across the victim-offender
  divide
• Involves/engages with the family (of both
  offender and victim)
• Enables a welfare or planning only approach if
  restorative element not appropriate
• Ultimately enable a victim planning focus?

16
Why engage with families???

• The Ecological approach to engaging with
  offending drawn from, MST, Narrative, Resilience
  models, sex offending
• The importance of families to yp (SWAY research
  in Feltham)
• Constricted planning which fails to work in
  partnership
• Enhanced motivation to engage

17
Why work with families?

• Understanding young peoples family context and
  experience is often integral to understanding and
  diverting them from sexually harmful or abusive
  patterns of behaviour. Stressing that changing
  the family context may be necessary to enable a
  young person to accept responsibility for their
  behaviour.
• Hackett,S 2001

18
(No Transcript)
19
What do we know works with family engagement??

• Being invited to the party
• Being voluntary
• Being respected and valued
• Recognising strength and not pre-occupied with
  deficit
• Working at family pace
• Honesty
• Not making promises
• Sharing decision making
• Not dumping.

20
Consequences of failing to engage parents and
carers

• Family left isolated
• Resentment of and resistant to agencies
• Minimising and denial of the problem
• Compounding the crisis rejection
• Constricted assessment and planning
• Lack of focus on vulnerable siblings and or other
  victims
• Increased risk of treatment drop out / recidivism
• Corroded therapeutic gains

21
(No Transcript)
22
Common Family Issues

• Anger, exhaustion, rejection or blame
• History of emotional problems
• Distorted power relationships
• Unresolved trauma and loss
• Disrupted attachments avoidant, enmeshed,
  disorganised
• Secrets
• Lack of parental leadership, supervision,
  boundary setting
• Family isolation

23
Key themes from families
        Emotional safety creating a space to
share, talk and listen without conflictthe
surprise that others felt the same as I
did         The lack of a previous opportunity
to do this born out of the fear of
conflict         The need to manage blame and
not to allow that to sabotage the ability to
communicate         The importance of ground
rules and a structure to facilitate the dialogue
create the safety, to be informal and relaxed but
with agreed rules to ensure everyone gets a
chance. The collective responsibility for this
creates cohesion         Families value
preparation to frame their views and build up to
the reality of the meeting         Families
appreciate the reduction in tension that a
meeting can bring, they value this individually
and collectively         The pride of the
family in achieving a good outcome and
recognising the strengths of their
family         A future focus is important, the
past cannot be changed but the future
can         The opportunity to talk (and
function)as a family, rather than single
conversations between individual family
members    
24
Common victim issues/responses from
parents/carers of victim

•  Guilt around failure to protect
•  Confusion over duality of role
•   Anger at betrayal of a family member who caused
  the abuse
•   Concern about victimisation history leading
  them to abuse others
•   Protection of vulnerable others in the family
  and controlling who knows
•   Not meeting/recognising own needs
•  The potential for the disclosure to lead to
  other disclosures in the family either
  recent or historic
•  Uncertainty around accessing victim services. Is
  that going to be helpful? Was info given at a
  time of crisis and set aside as a consequence?
•  Slowly recognising the reality of the impact in
  terms of changes in behaviour by the child
•  Feeling isolated and unique and unable to share
  with others

25
Unresolved issues.

• Best model of RJ..processes that fit people not
  people into processes
• Low volume/takes time
• Not all areas have Sex Offender Assessment
  frameworks such as AIM
• Lack of clear victim support services for victims
  of abuse/focus upon acute trauma/ clinical models

26
Best Practice Guide

• Core Restorative Practice
• Core Knowledge , preparation, facilitation,
• Restorative work in sensitive and complex cases
• Skills/knowledge as above but at a higher level

27
(No Transcript)
28
Voices of participants

• All have taken part in a fgm