Page 66 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

based exercises. Moreover, we consider that it should be an entry level
requirement for TSG officers to spend time in the communities within
which they are likely to be active. Without gaining the cultural competency
for the communities they service, there is a real risk that they will undermine
any good work and progress achieved by local officers.

3.20 Reverse mentoring inverts the traditional mentor-mentee relationship. In this
relationship, the experiences of the child are centred and their perspectives
engaged. When it works well, the experience of the child can inform decision
makers, which should help bridge the knowledge gap about the experiences of
growing up and living as a part of a minority community. Through regular
mentoring sessions, the hope is that biased preconceptions are challenged and
corrected. However, without buy-in from both sides, it may fail, and entrench
a feeling of helplessness in the child mentor. 191 As such, sufficient care must
be taken to the design of such programmes. In order to ensure high levels of
participation, criminal justice agencies should appoint champions to encourage
their peers to participate and YOTs should identify suitable and willing
mentors. As it is likely to be quite a demanding role, we believe that confident
young adults, rather than children, would be best placed to act as mentors.

3.21 Training should be compulsory, and treated with equal seriousness to other
mandatory courses, such as fire safety training. It should also take place yearly,
supplemented with reading and watching lists, which employees and
practitioners should use to enhance their learning experience. With respect to
implementation, we recommend that the relevant HM Inspectorates for
each agency form specialist teams to evaluate the programmes. We also
recommend that the Judicial College, the Inns of Court College of
Advocacy and the Law Society set out a clear plan to implement such
training, which must be evaluated and measured.

Local mapping
3.22 Regular mapping exercises that identify the ethnic, religious and cultural mix
of a community are essential if criminal justice agencies are to understand the
communities which they must serve.

191 D. Batty, ‘Cambridge may drop BAME mentoring of White academics’, The Guardian, 14 March
2020.

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