Niacro

Here are the main points NIACRO raised in our response.

Here are the main points NIACRO raised in our response. When is a young person not a young person? There are many definitions - we welcomed the strategy's choice of 18. One result of this would be that people under this age should not be held in prisons designed for adults but in juvenile justice facilities.

On child protection, we called for proper resourcing of advocacy services, i.e., services in which young people can make their point with confidence and trust, knowing they'll be not only listened to but heard. Some good initiatives have had to come to an end with the end of the Children's Funds. So far as vetting is concerned, a criminal record in itself should not automatically exclude an adult from working with children.

There is a particular problem for children who are directly or indirectly affected by the threat of attacks from within their community. It's easy to see the impact this can have on a child's health, education, and emotional well-being. Our experience is that these situations are dealt with as one-off crises (which indeed they are for the child concerned). What is needed is a consistent response, adequately resourced, involving all the agencies concerned, which doesn't further stigmatise and distress the children.

The consultation document talked about "a child centred whole system approach" which is a bit of a mouthful, but you can see what they're getting at. This is presumably what the new Children's Minister will lead on; the co-ordination of services across government. In which case, it might be interesting to be a fly on the wall when those who are spearheading initiatives to keep children out of the criminal justice system and/or work effectively with them when they are in it, sit down to discuss the strategy with those who are imposing ASBOs.

Preventing offending: there is good preventative work going on, mostly on a project or trial basis, in Northern Ireland. Much of it has been evaluated and where effective it should be maintained, extended and publicised.

Parents and children: it should be made easy for a child to keep in contact with a parent in prison. The Prison Service has developed a visiting programme which has made this somewhat easier, but it needs to be consistent if children are not to be disappointed.

The draft strategy rightly tackles the problem of poverty. Most of NIACRO's adult clients live on benefit, and so therefore do their children. Anti-poverty initiatives need to be assessed to ensure that this particular group of service users are treated sensitively and flexibly.