Mutter Robin, Shemmings David, Dugmore Paul, Hyare Mina
School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London, Docklands Campus, London, UK.
Health Soc Care Community. 2008 May;16(3):262-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2008.00770.x. Epub 2008 Mar 18.
This paper discusses part of an evaluation of the 'Family Group Conference (FGC) Project for Young People Who Offend' within a large social services department ('Exshire'). The evaluation covers all 30 family group conferences during a 15-month period from September 2000 to December 2001. This article presents the findings relating to young people along with changes in their psychosocial profile using a modified version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman 1997). The views of all participants were positive, with the majority saying they would recommend FGCs to others. FGC was felt by most participants to have brought about changes in the way young people view the world, partly by helping them to accept the reality of offending in a way that had not previously been possible. It provided victims with a unique opportunity to become involved in the youth justice system, recognising them as key stakeholders as a result of a crime. This process left most victims with a sense of satisfaction and resolution. Average SDQ scores were lower following FGC for the 12 young people who responded to follow-up interviews. Although there are a number of restorative justice projects using FGC in youth justice, we believe this project is among the first in the UK to establish the use of the New Zealand model with its emphasis on 'private family time' as an ongoing established service. Although the data were collected before 2002, the project contains unique features which we believe should be brought to the attention of the wider academic and practice community given that FGC is still a fairly new, unexplored and under-evaluated phenomenon in youth justice. There is currently a need for more research looking at the use of FGC in relation to young offenders.
本文讨论了对一个大型社会服务部门（“埃克希尔”）内的“针对犯罪青少年的家庭小组会议（FGC）项目”进行评估的部分内容。该评估涵盖了从2000年9月至2001年12月这15个月期间举行的所有30次家庭小组会议。本文呈现了与青少年相关的调查结果，以及使用经过修改的优势与困难问卷（SDQ；古德曼，1997年）得出的他们心理社会状况的变化。所有参与者的看法都是积极的，大多数人表示会向他人推荐家庭小组会议。大多数参与者认为，家庭小组会议使青少年看待世界的方式发生了变化，部分原因是它帮助青少年以一种前所未有的方式接受犯罪的现实。它为受害者提供了一个独特的机会，使其能够参与到青少年司法系统中，由于犯罪事件，受害者被视为关键利益相关者。这一过程让大多数受害者产生了满足感和解决问题的感觉。在接受后续访谈的12名青少年中，家庭小组会议之后他们的SDQ平均得分有所降低。尽管在青少年司法领域有许多使用家庭小组会议的恢复性司法项目，但我们认为，该项目是英国最早采用强调“家庭私密时间”的新西兰模式并将其作为一项持续的既定服务的项目之一。尽管数据是在2002年之前收集的，但鉴于家庭小组会议在青少年司法领域仍是一个相当新的、未被充分探索和评估的现象，我们认为该项目具有一些独特之处，应引起更广泛的学术和实践界的关注。目前需要更多关于在青少年犯罪问题中使用家庭小组会议的研究。
