Influencing service design: The lived experience voice in developing a hub for young people on probation
“We created a partnership with Revolving Doors and we ran young people focus groups together. That was a really positive piece of work and definitely shaped our thinking on the pilot and what services we wanted to commission and how we could centre young adults’ voices throughout that experience.”
Roisin Briody Transitions to Adulthood Pilot Manager, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) is part of the Greater London Authority, delivering the mayor’s objectives. MOPAC were developing a hub for young adults, aged 18-25, on probation. This hub is innovative for this age group and linked in with our wider NewGen work with young people. MOPAC already had a working relationship with Revolving Doors through the NewGen project and asked if we could support consultation with young adults on developing the hub.
The young people’s consultation, run in collaboration with Leaders Unlocked, influenced the development of the pilot work for the hub as well as commissioning of its services. One issue that arose was the young adults do not always understand the terms of conditions of their licence and could therefore breach their licence in error. This highlighted the need to expand a Speech and Language Therapy role (already in the commissioning process) to review the accessibility of language in probation documentation for young adults. The SLT has since worked on a License Conditions Glossary of terms. This document will be given to young adults as an accompaniment to their License Conditions and will help the practitioner to break down those License Conditions into easy-to-understand language.
A second issue that arose in the consultation was that young people wanted practical things to do to fill their time. MOPAC reacted by commissioning a service to provide ‘meaningful activities’ aimed at building skills and confidence.
