In this blog, CYCJ’s Communications and Engagement Advisor Katya Allcott-Amjad explores the key themes that emerged from this year’s National Youth Justice conference. Delivered in partnership with National Youth Justice Advisory Group (NYJAG) and the Scottish Government, it hosted over 250 practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and youth justice experts.
This year’s theme was Diversity, Inequality and Justice. It was chosen to explore the way that protected characteristics interact with the justice system when children and young people come into conflict with the law.
Thank you to our fabulous line up of speakers who expertly took us through these subjects; Ms Siobhian Brown MSP, Luke Billingham, Professor Clare Allely, Professor Nancy Loucks OBE, Lucien Staddon Foster, Dr Kayleigh Charlton, Laura Price, ACC Mark Sutherland, Jimmy Paul, Claire Borden, Geoff Tordzro-Taylor, Dr Tracy Kirk, James Hamilton, Katy Nisbet and Wendy McInally. We are also grateful to GIVIT some STREET for their brilliant piece portraying the lives of children and young people today. Thank you to our chairs who expertly led delegates through the programme, Joanna Macdonald and Juliet Harris.
We revealed that 2026’s Practice Guide was available – a fundamental resource for practitioners in this field – including the two brand new sections on brain development and neurodiversity and children in conflict with the law and data.
The final presentation at this year’s National Youth Justice conference was entitled ‘Red Threads’: Children, Families, Rights and Justice.’, and was given by Professor Nancy Loucks OBE, Chief Executive of Families Outside. Nancy painted a picture of the interwoven impacts that can occur for families affected by imprisonment: financial concerns, insecure housing, mental and physical health impacts and more – all compounded by the stigma that can occur. She talked about these issues represented by ‘red threads’ – how pulling on one begins to reveal others that children and families will be facing.
This metaphor given at the end of the conference was perfectly timed – although the image was of untangling the threads, what I felt Nancy’s presentation gave us was a sense of tying together the many themes and topics that #YJConf26 addressed. We aimed to use this year’s conference to explore the facets of diversity and how they interact when children and young people come into conflict with the law. In that endeavour, we asked speakers with a broad variety of expertise to speak on their knowledge of protected characteristics, so that delegates would come away with a wide-ranging understanding of young people’s experiences of (in)justice.
Dr Kayleigh Charlton, CYCJ Research Associate, spoke to me about what was important to convey in her presentation at the conference. Kayleigh’s input explored the experiences of LGBTQ+ young people, and the fact that although these experiences are not hidden during policy discussion, they are not prioritised. She used gender identity and sexuality as a lens through which she could reiterate that structural inequalities – in education, from family life, and identity development – are the underlying factors that shape a young person’s involvement in risk taking behaviours. She reiterated the importance of designing spaces for children and young people that recognise their shifting and fluid identities. Fixed interventions or systems designed with cis/heteronormativity as the norm rarely works for young people who are going through a period of such rapid identity development and transformation.
This was emphasised on Day 2 by Dr Tracy Kirk, whose presentation on evolving capacities reminded us that a linear view of childhood isn’t representative of the dynamic, relational and context sensitive way that children’s competencies develop. Clare Allely’s keynote also addressed how important it is to carefully consider children as individuals. She explained that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will display the characteristics of this neurodevelopmental condition differently – going on to detail how the varying facets of ASD can provide a context for vulnerability to certain offending behaviours.
The call for an individualised approach was echoed in Luke Billingham’s keynote speech, where his fictionalised story of ‘John’ – a young person whose involvement in the justice system was shaped by structural inequities – emphasised that children can experience ‘interventionitis’ from having repeated referrals to structured programmes that don’t account for an individual’s experience. Luke presented two potential views for John’s future: one pessimistic, and one optimistic. His experiences of racism, of not being listened to, combined with structural inequities could result in a bleak future for him. This sense that a potentially pessimistic future exists for young people like John was reiterated during the workshop from our colleagues at SCRA (Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration), who shared a concerning picture on the continuing use of AI given the biases that have shaped this technology.
I want to share the two parallel themes which emerged for me, which could be viewed through the optimistic and pessimistic lenses: structural inequality, which results in adverse outcomes for children and young people, that requires a strategic, political approach to change, and individual, relational approaches, which assess children’s needs and considers their evolving capacities.
We could take the pessimistic view that structural inequities are entrenched in our society, something too big to tackle on our own. It seems obvious then that we would take the optimistic view, and support each other as practitioners to be flexible in the way we support children, creating strong relationships that result in the best outcomes for them. To quote the minister for Children, Young People and the Promise in her welcome speech, “To get it right for every child means getting it right for each child.”
But maybe there’s another perspective – instead of choosing to focus solely on individual, relational practice – we can untangle the ‘red threads’ to understand the complex, nuanced picture of a young person’s life, and the structures, inequities and context which has led to their involvement with the justice system. Holding on to the threads means developing a connection to the young person, providing that relational support with humility and cultural sensitivity at the core (as emphasised in Laura Price’s Day 1 input). At CYCJ, we then have the responsibility to present this complex tapestry to those who can help us change the structures and fixed systems, through improvements to policy and practice.
We know from the presentations across the conference that practitioners are already working in a relational way, nurturing lasting connections with the children and young people they support. What our speakers did through their inputs was provide further insights and considerations, so that practitioners can be truly confident whilst working in this way.
It’s hard to capture the nuances of many of the presentations at this year’s conference – and to attempt to do so would be to do our speakers a disservice. So instead, I’ve tried to convey the two themes which flowed throughout , which connected and coalesced across both days. This brilliant range of inputs we heard from this year has left the CYCJ team very reflective about what we can do next, and I’m confident that through our communications work we will continue this vital conversation. We want to thank all speakers for contributing to another excellent National Youth Justice Conference, and look forward to seeing you there too in 2027.
The post Untangling the threads: why we chose to explore diversity, inequality and justice at the 2026 National Youth Justice conference appeared first on Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice.
Source: Raising Youth Justice – Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice Read More
