1. Changing destinations
The Centre, UCLAN
27 May 2015
Roger Smith
Durham University

2. Changing destinations
Overview and context
Where does ‘participation’ begin and end?
How do we judge the value and contribution of participatory action?
UR Boss: aims and vision
Reality bites
Participatory forays
Taking control: UR Boss is the boss
Making a difference?
Lessons, thoughts and prospects for participation

3. Changing destinations
Where does participation begin and end?
Initial ideas and motivation
Problem identification
Engagement
Control (eg budget and staffing decisions)
Ownership (eg UR Boss vs Howard League)
‘Endings’

4. Changing destinations
How do we judge the value and contribution of participatory action?
Changing practice?
Changing organisations?
Changing processes?
Changing attitudes?
Changing lives?

5. Changing destinations
UR Boss: aims and vision
Individual needs and rights: the legal service
Improve services and accountability
Training and support for young people to have a voice
Promote participation (of young people in custody)
Blurred lines….

6. Changing destinations
Reality bites
A participatory evaluation?
Legal services and participatory work (confidentiality etc)
A changing organisation…
Practical challenges (staffing, prisons, capacity)
Unknown territory

7. Changing destinations
Participatory forays
Life Inside
Setting the agenda
Creating links (legal service → participation): but ‘things are just too chaotic’ for many
Dealing with constraints (distance, segregation, conditions)
Communication (inside-outside)
Campaigns (setting priorities – eg accommodation vs PCCs)
Young advisors

8. Changing destinations
Taking control: UR Boss is the boss
Participation workers as facilitators of change
Capacity building and valuing young people
Life Inside/Life Outside, letting issues ‘emerge’
“The fact that they work with us young people and people who have been inside already, it means that is not just their perception of what needs to be changed in prison. It is the actual issues that a lot of young people who have been there say need changing.” (Young Advisor)

9. Changing destinations
Making a difference?
Ending strip-searching (“I think the money would be worth that alone”, UR Boss team member)
UR Boss Manifesto
Campaigns and provision of evidence
Changing practice: prison food and resettlement
Changing the organisation (“The point is to make a difference and change things for the better and the young people’s involvement helps us do this more effectively”, Howard League staff member)
Changing lives (Young advisors gaining recognition: “I did not think that people like me went to university…”)

10. Changing destinations
Lessons, thoughts and prospects for participation
Unwavering vision
Adaptability
Learning needs to be embedded within organisations
Principled but not purist
Recurrent issues
Sustainability?
Thresholds?
Ends vs means?

11. Changing destinations
Endnote: participation criteria
Badham and Davies (2007):
- Participation involves being heard and something changing for the better as a result
- Participation is best promoted through opportunities for engagement in dialogue, not oppositional or confrontational processes between young people and decision makers
- Participation needs to be rooted in the lived lives of children and young people and address tangible issues of concern and importance to them.
- Participation is political and is about enfranchisement of a disenfranchised group in society to ensure effective action to make change happen
- Participation needs to be inclusive through opportunities for the young to take part on their own terms and on their own issues and not just through adult initiated or established models and processes.
(in Harrison et al, Leading Work with Young People, Sage)