TRU
Connecting key people for a supported journey
Type of work: Service design/Co-created
Date: October 2019 - December 2019 (2 1/2 months)
Team: 4 // Alessandro Paone, Beatrice Mandelstam, Pinja Piipponen + me
Project partner: MoJ UCPD team
My strengths: Interviews - Workshop planning and facilitation - Concept ideation
This project brief was set by the User Centred Policy Design team at the Ministry of Justice to look at the future of the youth justice system with a holistic and cross governmental approach and taking into account their new policy vision called Secure School, where youth prisons are being rethink to become more effective places for rehabilitation and breaking the re-offending cycle. My interest in social innovation and broaden my understanding of policy design were the reasons for me to jump into this challenge.
TRU
The Design
TRU is a digital platform that sits within youth custody institutions. Accessible at the key moments in a young person’s journey through the system, TRU has been designed for both prison officers and the young people in their care. It acts as an enabler in building mutual respect and trust by humanising interactions that reveal the person beyond the label.
To support the use of this platform, we envision a new recruitment policy to accommodate the new role that will replace the existing Youth Custody Officer: the Youth Support Worker. Highly skilled, better paid and committed to the job, they will guide the young people in custody through their rehabilitation journey.
The platform also allows the Ministry of Justice to collect valuable data that can be shared across government departments and support services, such as the NHS and Department for Education. This shared knowledge will strengthen and create consistency throughout the support young people receive whilst in the system, helping to break the cycle of re-offending.
Process
This project’s research was complex as we didn’t have access to young offenders, who are the primary beneficiaries, that’s why we had to be recursive with different research methodologies. We worked closely with the UCPD team in understanding the current system; we spoke to Frontline staff, Proxies with lived experience, experts as well as policy makers, raising their voices through the project and the outcome.
The project also involved co-creation with the UCPD team, MoJ and other experts. We facilitated a workshop where novel concepts were created, prototypes and ran a few validation activities online and offline.
Lessons Learnt
Implementing
Even though the concept was validated and it is mostly feasible, it was important to understand that there’re are multiple factors that make it hard to implement like budget, policies and the individual interests of some actors involved; so it needs extra work on this matter.
Managing information
The most important skill I gained was learning to work in a professional and respectful way with information that involves sensible content for the people sharing it.
Emotions during interviews
Conversations with people who have experienced difficult situations were sometimes tough. As a listener it was key to balance my emotions and be very attentive to ask the right questions not to lose track of the information I needed but giving enough space for a person to express their feelings without being dragged into long sentimental stories.