Activities
The Overall Objective is to contribute to the capacity building of 380 juvenile justice professionals, i.e. judges, prosecutors and lawyers, in Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, using a child participation based training model in order to assure a higher level of child-participation during judicial proceedings and to further roll out evidence-based supports for children involved in criminal judicial proceedings.
Children involved in judicial proceedings who come in contact with professionals who participated in the Youthlab trainings, will have an increased sense of their rights being respected during the judicial proceedings and will feel safer to participate in the proceedings. During the two-year course of this project, the professionals have the potential of reaching at least 5.000 children after having received the training. The impact of the project will be measured among 300 children in total.
The first specific objective is to strengthen the child-friendly communicative competences of 380 lawyers, prosecutors and judges in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands using a child-participation based training model.
The second specific objective is the structural integration of the Youthlab model informal training and education programs for the lawyers, prosecutors and judges.
The innovative aspect of this project is involving youth in the development and delivery of the training and using creative training techniques. Until now training of professionals on how to communicate with young people does not involve youth who have the personal experience of being involved in the juvenile justice system. The experiences of young people shape and enrich the training and can be seen as a form of child participation in itself. The youth get paid for their service as trainers which is a proof of how serious youth participation is embedded in the project.
