educación emocional

Many of the issues concerning the operations of the Court itself, as opposed to the treatment programs, are dealt with in Section 6 as legal questions, but there are also a number of operational issues.

Court resources

In the initial phase of the pilot program the lack of a dedicated space for the YDC hearings caused problems for scheduling at Campbelltown Court. While there is still no dedicated courtroom, the scheduling problems appear to have eased as the YDC has become established.

Report back sessions

On the whole, report backs to the court have been operating as expected and there have not been any major changes in the way in which they are conducted. The informality of the process has increased as it has become more familiar to those involved.

The recording of court proceedings was raised as an issue by some stakeholders (and this is also discussed below in the section on monitoring). Everyone present at report backs takes their own notes, which are inevitably subjective. This was felt to be potentially dangerous as a young person may be sanctioned for a previous misdemeanour that has not been recorded consistently and accurately. Information from subjective notes may even be used at termination hearings, which are again heavily reliant on file notes. Legal Aid solicitors interviewed suggested that there should be a consistent formal finding for breaches of bail, and that court hearings and report backs should be tape recorded and transcribed. Children’s Court proceedings are currently tape recorded, and the transcripts are available and used for appeals. It was felt that such a procedure would increase the accountability of the YDC.

One stakeholder commented that they felt uncomfortable that issues were sometimes raised in review meetings prior to report backs of which the young person was not aware. The young person may then not be aware that the YDC Court Team know about that issue during the report back.

Another interviewee suggested that it would be useful to receive more positive feedback during report backs from residential rehabilitation services. The view was that information received tended to focus on negative events, such that ‘no news is good news’, but positive progress and achievements might not be properly taken into account.

Breaches and sanctioning

The YDC operates a system of sanctions or penalties for breaches of participants’ case plans that are generally implemented through changes to bail conditions. These can include being ordered into court for more frequent reporting, increasing supervision requirements, increasing the intensity of counselling sessions and other non-punitive therapeutic options, or short periods of detention. There is also the ultimate sanction of termination from the program. These sanctions are indirectly based on the YDC Program Plan (AGD, 2000), which discusses procedures for when participants do not comply.

The legal issues involved in sanctions for breaches of program compliance are discussed below in Section 6. Operationally, opinions about sanctions were mixed.

One view was that the program lacked a system of formal sanctions and that while this was the case participants would fail to take it seriously. Others felt that there were adequate measures available when needed. Some felt that there was a need for better guidelines that could provide a degree of consistency and predictability, because otherwise the process could be too arbitrary, particularly with changes in magistrates.

On the other hand, even amongst those who supported greater sanctions there was a strong feeling that they should not be uniform, as it was important to be able to respond flexibly to the particular reasons for a breach and to the young person’s individual needs.

In this context, there was a widespread welcome for the second Practice Direction on compliance drawn up in March 2002 by the YDC Chief Magistrate (Children’s Court of NSW, 2002). This provides a useful framework within which to work on compliance, although it does not address in any detail many of the practical difficulties with operating sanctions.

Rewards were felt to go hand in hand with sanctions. Young people receive a great deal of positive reinforcement from all members of the YDC team. Positive feedback from the magistrate during report backs was found to be very important for building self-esteem, although there was some concern that rewards such as ‘treats’ for good behaviour might be disapproved of by the wider public.

Termination remains the last resort for the YDC team in dealing with non-compliance or repeated offending by a program participant. One stakeholder questioned whether the criteria for termination would differ according to the numbers on the program.

With low numbers, for example, certain behaviours may be tolerated which might not be if numbers were higher.

Graduation and program extension

There are a number of issues concerning the level of support available in the periods leading up to and after graduation, and about the appropriate criteria for graduation.

There has also been some doubt amongst stakeholders interviewed whether the term 'graduation' is appropriate and meaningful for YDC participants. It was argued that YDC client group may see it as a ‘middle-class construct’ irrelevant to them. The participant interviews, however, did not support this concern. Although the terminology was not a topic specifically discussed with them, there was no apparent lack of understanding of the term and no participants suggested that it was inappropriate.

There are different levels of achievement attached to graduation and there has been some debate among members of the team about establishing a graded graduation system. It has been unclear, however, how different categories of graduation would be defined and what those categories would mean, since there are currently no relevant benchmarks. There have also been instances of disagreement between the magistrates and other member of the Court Team about whether particular participants have reached the point for successful graduation.

Fixed criteria for graduation do not seem appropriate, given that responsiveness to individual needs requires a case-by-case approach. Nevertheless, there are questions about how long a participant needs to stay on the program until they are assessed as suitable for graduation. It is doubtful, for example, whether a young person should be expected to remain on the program for substantially longer than the time they might otherwise have spent serving a custodial sentence. While participants should clearly not be graduated before they are ready, individual programs cannot be extended indefinitely in the hope of perfection. However, it is important to ensure that young people are not graduated before they are settled in stable accommodation.

Stakeholders also drew attention to some discrepancies in Court practices on different graduation occasions. Some have been major events, with participants receiving gifts and a strong sense of ceremony. Others are more low-key events. This discrepancy

partly reflects the different wishes of participants, but also staff perceptions of the progress and outcomes achieved by the young people. Where young people are considered to have done well, graduation tends to be more of an occasion. There is an argument that graduation ‘ceremonies’ should become more standardised.

It has been agreed within the Court Team that individual achievements should be recognised and recorded more formally, with goals identified and recorded. It was felt that all young people completing the program should receive a standard certificate, but should also receive additional personalised information about their individual achievements. This provides a useful record and reminder to the young person of the progress they have made. Importantly it also provides families, who often find it difficult to accept and recognise positive changes, with a concrete record of progress.

It was felt to be valuable for both the young person themselves and their parents to be able to contribute to such a process, thus engendering empowerment. Furthermore, this achievement report is a useful tool for magistrates seeking positive information to feedback to young people at graduation.

The high numbers of participants extending their programs voluntarily was seen as a clear indicator of program satisfaction and success by most interviewees. As we saw earlier, up to half of program participants have opted to extend and the norm for those who engage at all is no longer six months. However, although six months was not believed to be long enough to make substantial inroads on the life of the young person, most interviewees supported the current way in which the program is presented to potential participants - that is, as a six-month program with the possibility of extension. Most felt it was unlikely that a young person would choose to enter a program that had a mandatory duration longer than this. At the current level of program intake, there were no concerns about the impact on resources of large numbers of program extensions, although this could become an issue if the size of the intake were to grow.

There are some difficulties, however, with situations where program participation is being extended beyond 12 months. Some young people are not ready for graduation even after 12 months and on a few occasions extensions have been allowed beyond this period, as noted above, even though there are some legal limits to doing this under the Griffith remand procedures. There was a view that this needs to be clarified, not least since different magistrates have taken somewhat different approaches to the question.

There is also some concern about how ‘voluntary’ some extensions have been.

Magistrates have on occasions not felt that the young person has been ready for graduation and adjourned the date. There was a view that this can be counter-productive, as it removes the young person from the decision making process. It was felt that there should be greater effort to encourage participants in all cases to extend voluntarily. Compulsory extension should be last resort and should not be presented to the young person as a means of achieving a good report for the Court.

Aftercare

A trend has been noted that as participants approach graduation their levels of engagement tend to fall away, such that they are often seen as ‘flopping over the line’

rather than completing the program on a high note. Graduation can be both a positive

time for participants and a stressful one, as they are anxious about their possible sentence. As noted earlier, these periods of transition for participants are likely to require particular attention.

Some interviewees thought that it was important for support to be withdrawn gradually and for participants to be ‘weaned off’ in preparation for the end of their program, while others felt it to be a weakness of the program that support can drop away after graduation. While some participants are reluctant to continue with YDC contact and support after their program finishes, continuing contact with case managers who have been a stabilising influence in their lives for many months may be valuable for others.

It has not been possible to determine systematically the level or consistency of after-care in the final phase, but in the interviews for the implementation reviews a number of YDC workers commented that they were unable to carry out as much after-care as they would have liked because of time pressures. Where it has been possible, this has often happened mainly because the low number of participants has allowed some resources to be diverted to this work.

Sentencing

At the time of the implementation reviews, the number of sentences handed down were too small to draw any conclusions about whether magistrates were consistently following the program requirements. More recent information from the Judicial Commission database, however, suggests that there is a strong relationship between program completion and relatively light sentencing.

The database includes information on sentences handed down to YDC participants.

Table 4.3 below provides a summary of sentences given to YDC clients referred within the pilot period, according to their final status on the program. Note that the unit of analysis here is the sentence and not the individual young person. Although in many cases the various charges are subsumed within one single final sentence, in some cases separate sentences are given for different offences. Thus, for example the number of sentences given to program graduates (61) exceeds the number of graduates themselves during the pilot period. It is clear from this table that graduates have all received non-custodial sentences, mainly probation, bonds and cautions, while control orders have been given to nearly half those who withdrew from the program or were discharged by the Court.

4.6 Program Monitoring, Coordination and Management