Webinar Key Objectives:
This webinar is intended to help professionals learn about and engage with:
- Understanding the Canadian Youth Justice System and how it came to be what it is today;
- The overrepresentation of youth in care in the Canadian youth criminal justice system;
- Trauma impacts on youth in care and the importance of trauma-informed practice; and
- Concrete recommendations for social work policy & practice.
Webinar Summary:
Many Canadian youth involved in the child protection system tend to end up in the criminal justice system at one point or another. Findings from a 2009 report by the BC Representative for Children and Youth paint a grim picture: youth in care in BC had a one in six chance of being detained or sentenced to custody, compared to a one in 50 chance for youth who were not in care. Referred to in the research community as “crossover youth,” their involvement of these young adults in both the child protection and criminal justice systems is often the result of ongoing trauma that goes untreated, of multiple placements, of zero-tolerance policies in group homes and of various government ministry silos that allow troubled youth to fall between the cracks. The child protection system also tends to criminalize youth who exhibit behavioural problems, which has been highlighted in multiple reports including the New Brunswick Child and Youth Advocate’s 2008 reports Connecting the Dots and The Ashley Smith Report.
This webinar will provide an overview of the Canadian Youth Justice System, and delve into its overrepresentation of youth in care. A trauma-informed lens will be used to shift perspectives on youth in care being viewed as “trouble” vs. “troubled”, with a focus on the importance of trauma-informed practice across systems. Concrete recommendations for social work policy and practice will also be presented.
