OurstatementontheJusticeCommitteeYoungAdultsReport

22 June 2018

The waste of young adults’ talents and energies is one of the great social challenges of our time and the lack of action is failing society at large.

Bob Neill MP, Chair of the Justice Committee

On 20 June 2018, the Justice Committee published a follow up to the government’s response to their well-evidenced report on the treatment of young adults aged 18-to-25-years old in the criminal justice system, from October 2016, which Spark Inside submitted evidence to.

The Committee’s report recommended a distinct approach to young adults up to 25-years-old be adopted, including universal screening for maturity by prisons and probation services; and access to specialist staff and services that were proven to improve outcomes – mainly reducing reoffending – for young adults in prison. 

The recently released follow up reiterates the Justice Committee’s visionary proposals: 

We expect prison and probation services to have developed approaches which properly assess and address young adults’ needs, recognise their strengths, and support them to develop non-criminal identities, resulting in better outcomes both for them and society at large.

Justice Committee

Spark Inside’s view on the committee recommendations:

At Spark Inside, we support the need for a distinct and coherent approach to young adults. We welcome the call for a clearly defined age categorisation and a person-centred, needs-focused strategy towards young adults; and for this to be explicitly embedded within Her Majesty’s Prison Service’s operations across the prison estate, and the Ministry of Justice’s policy and strategy. 

Spark Inside works with young adults aged 15 to 25-years-old in prison through our structured life coaching programme, Hero’s Journey™. Our coaching programme enables self-sufficiency, fosters independence and personal responsibility whilst building young people’s motivation to change; supporting them to create a pro-social identity away from crime. 

Hero’s Journey™ has been proven to reduce reoffending by one third, as well as directly improving wellbeing; empathy and emotional intelligence; decision-making and resilience; confidence; and helping young people to have a positive future outlook.

Find out more about our latest evaluation

As coaching directly aligns with the committee’s suggestions on how to achieve better outcomes for young adults in prison, we continue to advocate for more access to life coaching. We support the committee’s well-evidenced calls to extend the categorisation of young adults to 25-years-old.

The report supports the Offender Management in Custody model, where prison staff will work on a one-to-one basis with young adults in prison, to support them in developing their resilience and maturity, and ultimately to stop reoffending.

The committee’s original report recommended staff should be skilled in coaching young people to set goals and problem solve; in recognising young adult’s independence and their positive attributes; and in having conversations that are forward looking and future focused, to have the best outcome for young people. We therefore recommend all key workers are trained in basic coaching techniques to be able to do this most effectively.