REIMAGINING SECURE CARE
Systems Thinking | Service Design
Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ)
Reimagining Secure Care is a systemic change programme in Scotland to transform children and young people’s experiences of settings where their liberty is deprived and to find alternatives to being removed from their families and communities to access the additional support they need.
This project is part of the wider Reimagining Justice programme of transformational change currently being delivered within the Scottish context, supporting the re-design of rights-based services with children and young people on the cusp of or in conflict with the law.
The need
The Independent Care Review (2020) and the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government (2022) both stated that there should be no under-18s held within a Young Offenders Institution by 2024. The intention is not just that no child should be deprived of their liberty, but that development is needed to ensure that the ‘purpose, delivery and infrastructure’ that supports ‘secure care’ is therapeutic, and trauma-informed (The Promise, 2020)
Our response
Dartington is supporting the lead partner, Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), through the design process to help engage children, young people, families, carers, and a range of professional stakeholders that come in contact with people experiencing or are on the edge of secure care, to create a set of principles and options for the Scottish Government to support the implementation of meaningful and sustainable change.