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The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to a recent government-commissioned review of residential care (Narey, 2016), and the subsequent government response (Department of Education (DfE), 2016), which minimises the correlation between the experience of being looked after and becoming involved in the youth justice system. The Narey review emphasises on the role of early adversity in looked after children’s offending behaviour but minimises the significance of experiences during and after care, and downplays the effect of policies and practices that may exacerbate looked after children’s involvement in the youth justice system.

The paper builds upon a systematic literature review conducted for the Prison Reform Trust (Staines, 2016) to demonstrate the extent of current knowledge about how risk factors, adverse experiences during and after care and the criminalisation of looked after children combine to increase the likelihood of involvement in criminal proceedings. The paper also highlights gaps in the research evidence, particularly in relation to gender and ethnicity.

The findings suggest that the Narey review (2016) and the government response (DfE, 2016), are misguided in their attempts to minimise the role of care in looked after children’s disproportionate representation within the youth justice system. The paper cautions against the over-simplification of a complex relationship and emphasises on the importance of recognising the intersection between different factors.

The paper uses secondary sources to develop an original argument to rebut claims within a recently published review.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the current policy context for work aimed at reducing the criminalisation of looked after children in England and Wales, and to consider the potential that now exists for a sustained reduction in the numbers and proportion of looked after children and young people becoming unnecessarily criminalised.

The author of this paper worked on the Prison Reform Trust’s independent review of looked after children in the criminal justice system, “In Care, Out of Trouble”, chaired by Lord Laming. The paper describes the context for the review and outlines its findings alongside those of concurrent government-commissioned reviews, detailing the government response. The paper describes the action now being taken to reduce the criminalisation of looked after children and argues that, while the UK and Welsh governments appear willing to lead in pursuing reforms, continued pressure will be needed to ensure that this translates into sustained change.

The paper notes that looked after children and young people remain significantly over represented in the criminal justice system despite a number of studies and statutory guidance aimed at preventing this. This is being successfully tackled in places where children’s social care services are working closely with criminal justice agencies, with common goals. The paper reports on the responses from the Welsh and UK governments and lead agencies to Lord Laming’s review and concurrent government-commissioned reviews, which confirm their willingness to show national leadership in raising expectations for effective local joint working.

The paper offers an insight into the current policy context for protecting looked after children and young people from unnecessary criminalisation and sets out the commitments that have been made by the UK and Welsh governments and national agencies to take action to this end. It notes the need for ongoing outside pressure to ensure these commitments translate into action.

This paper aims to support policy makers and practitioners in pursuing improvements in practice to protect looked after children from unnecessary criminalisation. As such, it is hoped that it may play a part in improving the life chances of looked after children and young people who might otherwise face the damaging consequences of involvement in the criminal justice system.

Lord Laming’s review was a timely, independent examination of the unnecessary criminalisation of looked after children. There is now a renewed focus in key government departments and agencies on the need to protect looked after children and young people from unnecessary criminalisation, including through the development of a concordat. Success will require ongoing dialogue with independent bodies, and a stronger focus by the relevant inspectorates. This paper summarises the context and findings of the review and subsequent policy developments, and may be useful for policy makers, practitioners in children’s social care and youth justice, and the police.

The UK Government’s’ “modernisation” programme has impacted and will continue to impact on the Law courts and judiciary procedures. Explores these impacts in seven areas: judicial independence; quality of service; cost‐effectiveness; democracy; efficiency; speed; and government as the driver.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the neglect of girls in care who come into conflict with the law, arguing that a gender-neutral approach in this area risks further marginalising an already vulnerable population.

A critical review of the literature and current policy climate is undertaken to explore what is known about the experiences of females in the justice system, as well as knowledge gaps.

Evidence on the prevalence and nature of offending by girls in care is limited. However, as looked after children, girls may be more likely to have their own behaviour unnecessarily criminalised. Whilst females and males share some prior experiences of victimisation and trauma, girls also have distinct needs and may be assessed and managed by state care and control systems in very different ways.

The paper is not based on primary research and does not present a systematic review of the literature.

The need to listen to girls and young women, and a far greater recognition of backgrounds of trauma must underpin future policy and practice. Diversion from the formal criminal justice system wherever possible is also a key goal to aspire to.

This paper focuses on the specific experiences of females. It calls for a gender-sensitive, trauma-informed approach to working with girls and women from the care system who come into conflict with the law, and questions the value of criminalising those whom the state previously deemed to be in need of welfare and support.

The purpose of this paper is to present and explore the findings of part of the author’s research study, an aim of which is to illuminate factors at policy, practice and procedural levels that contribute to the criminalisation of children in residential care in England.

This study utilises semi-structured interviews with children, young people, and professional adults in the care system.

Through analysis of the semi-structured interviews, the paper highlights how “system abuse” can contribute to poor outcomes, including involvement with the youth justice system.

The paper concludes by arguing that in order to successfully decrease criminalisation, it is necessary to employ an approach which, while acknowledging individual culpability, both recognises and focuses on the contribution of wider systemic failings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the particular characteristics and strengths of mainstream undergraduate and postgraduate university education for social workers.

A brief summary of the establishment of the honours degree or M-level qualification as the requirement for registration as a social worker in England is followed by a summary of the main aspects of “mainstream” social work courses. The values underpinning a “student” rather than a “trainee” route into social work are explored and some limited comparisons made with recently introduced fast-track specialist programmes. Where relevant, the student experience is contrasted with that of fast-track specialist trainees.

The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential impact on the social work profession and on agencies providing social work services of the cuts over the past few years in the numbers of students on “generalist” mainstream social work programmes.

This is a conceptual paper. It recognises that more information is available on long-established university programmes than on the more recently available fast-track routes into social work and cites relevant research.

The paper points to the changing balance between numbers entering social work in England via mainstream and fast-track specialist programmes and argues for a fuller debate amongst all stakeholders as to whether this change is in the interest of the profession and those who need social work services.

The author argues that the unequal level of funding between the different entry routes into social work is distorting choice (for students and future employers) between fast-track specialist and mainstream social work education. It is hypothesised that differences between the curricula and learning experiences of the two routes may have an impact on the social work service available to vulnerable people across age and needs groups. It also points to a potentially negative impact on social work education and the knowledge base of the reduction in numbers of academics with both social work practice experiences and research qualifications.

This is an original paper that draws on the author’s experience and the published research and grey literature cited.

This chapter explores how preservice teachers can use videos via social media to organize their ideas and enhance their understanding of content and pedagogical practices. It exemplifies how teacher development programs must embrace and become more in tune with societal practices and norms.

The methods of data collection for this study consist of participant observation of in-class activities (descriptive field notes reconstructing dialogue and activities), an open-ended questionnaire, and a focus group interview.

Five primary themes were revealed that describe preservice teachers’ scholarly experiences using Pinterest: igniting digital serendipity, Pinterest critic in relation to their thinking, Organizing and nesting knowledge, Picky pinning researcher, and Expert distributor of knowledge.

Teacher educators should consider how participants demonstrated a sense of pride in their scholarly creations and some began displaying modest amounts of expertise and characteristics of leadership within their local community both online and in-person.

While visual arts, drama, dance and music have been used to enhance literacy learning for many decades in preschool and primary classrooms, engaging with mobile learning can also provide many opportunities for young learners to explore and develop language and literacy. The use of mobile devices is of particular interest as technology has an impact on pedagogy and the mobility of digital devices provides many opportunities for engaged and meaningful literacy learning when teamed with the arts. In this chapter, we define the arts and their relationship with literacy learning before exploring a number of resources and practices for integrating their use in early learning settings.