Youth Justice and Youth Work

My journey

I left home in my teenage years by choice. This left me exposed to all sort of risks, but also possibilities. With ADHD and an unconventional manner of seeing and treating the world, I struggled to fit in. I also struggled to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I joined the army while I found myself in a different country getting used to new realities. Many people and institutions tried to “fix me” with well intended offers such as a job (I did not want), a training programme (that had nothing to do with me) or advice (that just did not make any sense). Year after year, and with drip drip changes, I started to find direction. This was assisted by two main factors. Firstly, the belief in myself. The determination that I could be better than the easy choices that I was offered. This did not mean that I did not struggle with my identity, confidence and sexuality. In fact, all these struggles threw me down multiple times often leading to depressions and complex mental health problems. But I got up. Secondly, I could not just walk through the doors of life without being guided to them. Key individuals showed me those doors. I just had to walk through them, and I did. No one can make it in this life alone. We all need the help of others. Only remember to give this back when it is our turn! Love is a circle that must be completed to be whole and meaningful. 

The foundations of my youth work

And here I am. Years later working on youth justice. From this page you can access publications, research and programmes that I have been running since my teenage years. This work is guided by my belief that young people deserve much more than what we give them through the youth justice or other social, educational or healthcare systems. 

The foundations of my youth work revolve around rooting out what I call “disadvantage thinking”. Society and our educational, justice, social and healthcare public services start from the premise that if we are accessing them, then we must have a problem. I argued that however much money is thrown by government, trusts and donors for new policies, good schooling, textbooks, volunteering programmes, different curricula, improved parenting or even affirmative action schemes, it won’t help address inequality if elitism and disadvantage thinking are not eradicated. Disadvantage thinking generates despair and feeds on prejudice and stereotypes.
This disadvantage thinking is what protects and preserves the status quo. For example, it is true that we no longer hold the view (at least in our majority) that it is acceptable to make black people sit together at the back of the bus. However, we still think it is logical to sit “slow children” together at the back of the class. Even in the most affluent Western countries, such as the US, we have introduced policies that allow schools to routinely identify and exclude students they see as being on the path of criminality.

“We learn best in stimulating environments when we feel sure we can succeed. When we feel happy or confident our brains benefit from the release of dopamine, the reward chemical which also helps with memory, attention and problem solving” (Wilkinson and Picket, 2009, p. 115). Yet every time I ask my students, they tell me that they are not special. 

Wilkinson and Picket also note: “Inequalities in society and in our schools have a direct effect on our brains, on our learning and educational achievement” (2009, p. 151). In the 1990s, the introduction of league tables also helped to create a market for state school places with parents paying through their mortgages to get a place for their children. The policies on increasing university fees is also breeding the philosophy that it is normal to have a few elite groups in society that will do better than others. This philosophy is based not on young people’s ability to learn but on their ability to pay.

Over the course of a decade, we also increased the rate of imprisoning children and young people despite no significant increase in criminality (Orr, 2008). For most of the young people and children in prison, their biggest mistake is not their crime. It is the fact that they are born in the wrong neighbourhood, the wrong family and time, and the wrong country. This is the understanding and context that we create.
Leading economists have published popular books on spotting “how talented a person is by looking at the kind of clothing he wears or the kind of car he drives” (Frank, 2008, p. 145). Do not worry about showing that you have made a difference to your community or that you have achieved something for yourself. Just dress up in expensive suits and drive a fancy car. And if you are intelligent enough to know that fancy cars are not good enough, then flash your degree from the top ten universities. These are the aspirations and personal targets that we encourage. Judging from my own teenage years, I remember feeling a strong sense of anxiety and insecurity that I would fail the aforementioned targets of expensive cars, clothes and top university degrees. And it seems that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. If only I knew this when it truly mattered.